Dinophysis is a genus of dinoflagellates[1][2][3] common in tropical, temperate, coastal and oceanic waters.

Toxic Dinophysis produce okadaic acid, dinophysistoxins, and pectenotoxins, which inhibit protein phosphatase and cause diarrhea.

[6] This genus is difficult to maintain in culture leading to challenges in gaining knowledge of these organisms.

[6] The common habitat of Dinophysis is in tropical, temperate, coastal and oceanic waters.

[6] Dinophysis have hypothecae that consist of two large plates, which take up most of the space of the theca, as well as some small platelets.

[4] Type D exhibits large, spherical areolation in the thecal surface with pores in the center of every 3-5 areolae; type E is characteristic of laterally flattened Dinophysis and consists of a circular areolation thecal surface and a central pore in nearly all areolae.

[4] Minute, usually rod-shaped or granular and yellow or brown colored chloroplasts are characteristic of Dinophysis.

[4] In senescent cells, chloroplasts tend to aggregate in the middle and form orange patches.

[12] The final plastids of D. caudata appeared stellate and had clustered pyrenoids terminally positioned, their thylakoid membranes are placed in pairs.

[6] While the role of a sexual cycle in Dinophysis is not fully understood yet, there is a proposed model for how this works.

[13] The smaller cells that give rise to gametes tend to have thinner thecae and less developed cingular and sulcal lists.

[13] Although the gametes are part of a dimorphic sexual cycle, sex cysts do not play an active role in the seeding of Dinophysis populations.

[14] The difference between these two classes was a 70 bp deletion, indicating the shorter product might be a pseudogene.

Dinoflagellates are algae and according to recent phylogeny they are sister groups to ciliates and apicomplexans.

[6] Common features associated with toxic Dinophysis include: large sizes, highly developed cingular and sulcal lists and hypothecal processes.