Calcidiscus leptoporus belongs to the order Coccolithophorales Schiller, 1926, a group of minute marine planktonic algae, that secrete calcite platelets on their outer surface. These platelets - coccoliths - form a major constituent of deep sea oozes from Cretaceous to modern times (the first known appearence of coccoliths, however, date back to the Triassic). Coccoliths can be found in almost any open oceanic regime except those in the austral high latitudes, where diatoms prevail. Because of their abundance coccoliths are very promising study objects for investigating evolution. Microfossils are very important for such research because due to the long times involved evolution cannot be reproduced in laboratory experiments. Problems dealing with rates and modes of speciation processes can be ideally addressed with microfossils: how have new species evolved during the past; what are the typical times involved in speciation events, and what are the conditions for speciation to take place? Such questions are still controversially discussed, and there are observations indicating quick (punctuational) speciation events, but the reverse (slow, gradual phyletic change) was also observed in other cases. What are the reasons for cladogenetic speciation mode (splitting of an ancestral group into two or more descendant populations, with subsequent divergence), and what factors caused phyletic evolution (one-to-one phyletic relationships without splitting) during the geological past ? Investigations about the pattern and mode of evolution require an adequately dated and uninterrupted record of sediments coming from various oceanic provenances, where the fossil remains of organisms can be studied under different conditions. One example of an evolutionary study by the means of morphometric analysis was recently completed by the author in the case of the extant coccolithophorid Calcidiscus leptoporus, which developed from an unknown ancestor during the Early Miocene. The observations revealed interesting patterns of morphological change through time with unexpected complexity. For example, the patterns in C. leptoporus are neither punctuational nor purely phyletic, but rather a combination of both, together with prolonged periods of stasis (=no morphological change over long times). No definite explanation can be given for these findings, although there is evidence for paleoceanographic influences on the morphology of coccoliths. Most of the results of this investigation are published in a traditional, printed journal. However, the complexity of patterns called for alternative ways to present the results to a broader audience, which was found with the development of animated 3D diagrams, shown in the present paper. In addition, the article contains supplementary, hitherto unpublished data and software, that are useful for future studies about the evolution of C. leptoporus.