The Foraminifera or forams for short, are a large group of amoeboid

Amoeboid

Amoeboids are single-celled life-forms characterized by an irregular shape."Amoeboid" and "amœba" are often used interchangeably even by biologists, and especially refer to a creature moving by using pseudopodia. Most references to "amoebas" or "amoebae" are to amoeboids in general rather than to...

 protists which are among the commonest 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...

 species. They have reticulating pseudopod

Pseudopod

Pseudopods or pseudopodia are temporary projections of eukaryotic cells. Cells that possess this faculty are generally referred to as amoeboids. Pseudopodia extend and contract by the reversible assembly of actin subunits into microfilaments...

s, fine strands of cytoplasm

Cytoplasm

The cytoplasm is a small gel-like substance residing between the cell membrane holding all the cell's internal sub-structures , except for the nucleus. All the contents of the cells of prokaryote organisms are contained within the cytoplasm...

 that branch and merge to form a dynamic net. They typically produce a test

Test (biology)

A test is a term used to refer to the shell of sea urchins, and also the shell of certain microorganisms, such as testate foraminifera and testate amoebae....

, or shell, which can have either one or multiple chambers, some becoming quite elaborate in structure. These shells are made of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) or agglutinated sediment particles.