CHAPTER I
LITTERATURE REVIEW
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3.4 Systematic
The word 'spirulina' is the commercial name of the Arthrospira genus, not to be confused with
the non-edible Spirulina genus, also considered to be a genus of cyanobacteria (examples:
Spirulina subtilissima, Spirulina princeps) (Fox, 1999).
Distinguishing between Arthrospira and non-edible Spirulina solely based on their appearance
is challenging due to their similar morphology. Molecular analyses, however, provide a reliable
method for identifying Arthrospira species like A. platensis and A. maxima (Sili et al.,2012).
Table 3: Spirulina classification (AlFadhly et al., 2022).
Common Names
Taxonomic Classes
Bacteria
Domain
Eubacterla
Kingdom
Cyanobacteria
Phylum
Cyanophyceae
Class
Oscillatoriophycideae
Sub-class
Oscillaorlales
Order
Osellatorlaceae
Family
Arthrospira
Genus
A.platensis
Species
There are several species that differ only in their geographical location: Spirulina platensisis
the main African species, S.geitleries the Mexican species (Arrignon, 2002) and also known
as Spirulina maxima (Vonshak,1997), S.lonarfrom Lake Lonar in India, S.orovilca from Lake
Orovilca, S.paracas from water basins near Paracas, and S.ventanilla from Peru. Additionally,
there's Spirulina crater from Mexico and Spirulina tamanrasset from Algeria (Fox, 1999).