More than a century ago, Kofoid proposed a system to label thecal plates of
dinoflagellates based on series from apical to antapical. Thanks to this system it
was possible to develop the taxonomy of armoured dinoflagellates as it was
generally accepted by dinoflagellate taxonomists. Nevertheless, when different
species or genera are compared it soon appears that homologous plates receive
different names when the Kofoid system is strictly applied. In 1978 at the Penrose
Conference on Modern and Fossil Dinoflagellates which was the first of the DINO
series, this problem was addressed and discussed, and as a consequence several
alternatives were published as an attempt to conciliate plate labels with
homologies. Although the proposals were very logic they were not used by
taxonomist, probably due to laziness instead of disagreement with the systems.
Here, a relaxed version of the Kofoidian system taking into account homologies
among plates is applied to some Gonyaulacales genera: Alexandrium,
Ceratocorys, Coolia, Fragilidium, Gambierdiscus, Gonyaulax and Ostreopsis
