• Marine, Pelagic, Luminescent protest

• Commonly known as ‘Sea sparkle’

• Body is transparent and covered by a chitinous pellicle

• Cytoplasm is highly vacuolated, containing many cytoplasmic strands. Vacuoles help in floating.

• Uninucleate, embedded in the cytoplasm there are many photogenic granules.

• Nutrition is holozoic.

• Tentacle helps in locomotion and food collection.

• Under favourable conditions, Noctiluca multiples in plenty, imparting a red colour to the water surface. This is called ‘Red tide’.

• Reproduce asexually by binary fission and sexually by ‘Hologamy’