Dinoflagellates of the Gulf of Mexico

This paper reviews the early literature dealing with Gulf of Mexico dinoflagellates. Most references pertain to the dinoflagellate fauna along the Gulf Coast of Florida, where interest was stimulated by the disastrous outbreaks of red tide in 1946 and 1947. The recurrent mortality of marine organisms in Offatts Bayou, a blind inlet of Galveston Bay, was also associated with dinoflagellate bloom. It has been suggested, however, that the annual fish kills in this area may have been caused by the production of hydrogen sulfide or by suffocation due to anaerobic conditions, rather than by dinoflagellate toxins per se.