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Unknown Micro-spiral
March 29, 2013
23:56
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December 24, 2012
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Sorry if this is a duplicate entry. Having trouble editing and/or cancelling my first attempt.

 

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. I have seen 3 of these critters in the last 3 months, all from the sediment in a shallow pond mostly frozen over. I've never seen a nematode coiled up like this, or partitioned like a micro-nautilus. The outer end appears to be broken off; also very un-worm-like. Maybe it isn't even an animal.

 

Unknown micro-spiral

March 30, 2013
21:11
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January 16, 2012
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Hi Spoke,

What objective did you use?  Are you sure about the scale?  Could it possibly be 500 µm?

March 31, 2013
17:59
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Used my 40x objective. Scale is approximate but pretty close.

March 31, 2013
22:35
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January 16, 2012
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Thank you, Spoke.  I thought I might have a remote guess if it had been 10 times larger (and even then, my guess would most probably be incorrect), but now I don't even have a wrong guessEmbarassed, sorry!  But hopefully one of our experts might have an answer.

April 1, 2013
02:03
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Gekko, thanks for giving it some thought. For what it's worth here is another image of a similar critter. A different perspective but no real additional information.

 

Another spiral

April 1, 2013
02:26
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March 16, 2012
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Hi Spoke,

The first image seems to have gone missing; I assume it's the one on your page here. Filaments divided by septa like this tend to be from fungi, which are often hard to impossible to recognize by shape. The book How to Know the Pollen and Spores offers Helicoma, though, as one example with coiled ascospores that at least look consistent with what you found.

April 1, 2013
18:03
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December 24, 2012
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 Hi Actinophyrs,

 

You have been very helpful. It would appear that we are dealing with either Helicoma or possibly Helicosporium. In either case you have placed it in the right ballpark.

 

Just for the record, the link you provided is not the image I used in my original post but it is #3 of the three specimens I have seen. The original image (wherever it is) can be seen at:

 

http://www.zone-vx.com/MF-02.jpg

 

Thanks again. Your help is much appreciated.

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