Perkinsidae is a family of

alveolate The alveolates (meaning "pitted like a honeycomb") are a group of protists, considered a major unranked clade or superphylum within Eukaryota. They are currently grouped with the Stramenopiles and Rhizaria among the protists with tubulocristate ...

s in the phylum Perkinsozoa, a sister group to the

dinoflagellate The Dinoflagellates (), also called Dinophytes, are a monophyletic group of single-celled eukaryotes constituting the phylum Dinoflagellata and are usually considered protists. Dinoflagellates are mostly marine plankton, but they are also commo ...

Members

It includes ''

Perkinsus ''Perkinsus'' is a genus of alveolates in the phylum Perkinsozoa. The genus was erected in 1978 to better treat its type species, '' Perkinsus marinus'', known formerly as ''Dermocystidium marinum''. These are parasitic protozoans that infect ...

'' species, which are

parasitic Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The ent ...

protozoa Protozoa (: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a polyphyletic group of single-celled eukaryotes, either free-living or parasitic, that feed on organic matter such as other microorganisms or organic debris. Historically ...

ns, some of which cause disease and mass mortality in wild and farmed

molluscs Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

such as

oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but no ...

s. There are two

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

: *'' Parvilucifera'', a genus of 3 species *''

'', a genus of 7 to 8 species

Characteristics

Perkinsidae possess plastids which do not contain DNA.

References

Perkinsozoa Alveolata families {{alveolate-stub