As part of its life cycle, this species produces a resting stage, a
dinoflagellate cyst called
Lingulodinium machaerophorum (synonym
Hystrichosphaeridium machaerophorum). This cyst was first described by Deflandre and Cookson in 1955 from the Miocene of Balcombe Bay, Victoria, Australia as: "Shell globular, subsphaerical or ellipsoidal with a rigid membrane, more brittle than deformable, covered with numerous long, stiff, conical, pointed processes resembling the blade of a dagger. Surface of shell granular or punctate." Its stratigraphic range is the Upper Paleocene of eastern USA and Denmark till Recent.
Organic-walled dinocyst morphology is shown to be controlled by changes in salinity and temperature in some species, more particularly process length variation (processes are sometimes called spines, but that is incorrect because they are not necessarily pointy). This morphological variation is known for
Lingulodinium machaerophorum from culture experiments, and study of surface sediments. The morphological variation of process lengths can be applied for the reconstruction of
salinity. Process length variation of
Lingulodinium machaerophorum has been used to reconstruct Black Sea salinity variation. ==Toxicity==