🔬 143 – INFECTED and INVADED – This worm is ill

Here I show you some ciliates that have infected a worm. I also show you how I made a plankton net to filter out algae and other microorganisms from flowing water. I found a small worm and in it I saw many moving ciliates. Are these parasites of the worm? Or symbionts? I don’t know. In any case I have never before seen these. While it is nothing unusual to have bacteria growing on a host, having so many ciliates – which are much larger – moving around inside was a bit unexpected.