Pedinella is a small, unicellular plankton

Plankton

Plankton are any drifting organisms that inhabit the pelagic zone of oceans, seas, or bodies of fresh water. That is, plankton are defined by their ecological niche rather than phylogenetic or taxonomic classification...

ic or attached, flagellated Heterokont

Heterokont

The heterokonts or stramenopiles are a major line of eukaryotes currently containing more than 100,000 known species. Most are algae, ranging from the giant multicellular kelp to the unicellular diatoms, which are a primary component of plankton...

 first described in 1888 by A. V. Vysotskij. The genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 is monospecific, and the single species is Pedinella hexacostata Vysotskij. Pedinella has an inverted bell

Inverted bell

The inverted bell is a metaphorical name for geometric shape that resembles a bell upside down.In architecture, the term is applied, e.g., to describe the shape of the capitals of Corinthian columns....

 or apple shape with a stalk arising from the posterior end, and has a single, long, ribbon-like, apical flagellum and, a second apical flagellum that is reduced to its basal body. The cells are radially symmetrical, with a large central nucleus, surrounded equatorially by a number of chloroplast

Chloroplast

Chloroplasts are organelles found in plant cells and other eukaryotic organisms that conduct photosynthesis. Chloroplasts capture light energy to conserve free energy in the form of ATP and reduce NADP to NADPH through a complex set of processes called photosynthesis.Chloroplasts are green...

s that cause the body to bulge out where the plastids are pushed up against the plasma membrane. The organism is found in freshwater and brackish freshwater habitats. Pedinella is a mixotroph

Mixotroph

A mixotroph is a microorganism that can use a mix of different sources of energy and carbon. Possible are alternations between photo- and chemotrophy, between litho- and organotrophy, between auto- and heterotrophy or a combination of it...

 and functions through either photosynthesis

Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can...

or by ingesting organic substances from its environment.