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November 2000
Dear friends of radiolarians!

During the time when Neil Swanberg and myself sampled and worked on the
radiolarian material collected in the plankton and sediment from fjords in
western Norway, we came across the species as illustrated here. This
species is so far found only in the Norwegian fjords (adult and juvenile),
while in the Norwegian Sea surface sediments I have only found individuals
with the two medullar spheres developed, no adult forms found in the open
ocean till now.

When complete, three spheres are developed, with a proportion of the three
spheres diameters being 1:2:9.

In most cases, we do only find the two medullar spheres (18-22 µm and 40-44
µm) with numerous (normally about) radial spines (continues outside the
third cortical sphere). However, in addition 10 or more radial beams (do
not pierce the third sphere) do connect the two outermost spheres.

The inner sphere seems to have a cubical appearance, composed of 8 large
square meshes. The second sphere is irregular in outline with round to
polygonal pores. The cortical sphere is large and loosely constructed by a
thin and delicate lattice. The pores are irregular and of unequal size.

I would be happy to receive some comments about this species. So far I have
not found any reference to this species in the present literature, but I
might have overlooked it. Therefore:

Have any of you seen this speces anywhere?

Please include a photo and the longitude and latitude where you saw
something similar.

Thanks for your help.

Kjell R. Bjørklund

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