Foraminifera: what are they?

Yet another low quality upload from yours truly, this time about some obscure stuff that barely anyone knows. Transcript: Foraminifera. You probably don’t know what these organisms are, but I hope you’ll learn more about them by the end of this video. If I had to describe them in the most simple way possible, they are essentially amoebas with shells. Foraminifera (or simply just called forams) are single-celled Eukaryotes that were known of since antiquity, first being identified by Herodotus in the 5th century BC as impressions on the rocks comprising the great pyramids of Giza. These Nummulites or “coin stones” were fossils of extinct forams that died and became part of the sediment which formed the limestone of the region. Centuries later, Robert Hooke would observe living forams under his microscope, saying they resembled snails but on a miniature scale. Leeuwenhoek also saw and recorded forams, but it would only be until 1826 that Alcide d'Orbigny would coin the word Foraminifer