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The gastrotrich (pictures 6 & 7) is Lepidodermella squammata. The genus Ichthydium has no scales on the cuticle.
Good photos!

Great shot!

It's a planarian, eating an ostracod.

It may be interesting, that the planarian had already eaten an thecamoeba - an amoebo with a "shell".

Unfortunately your video on youtube is not reachable as it is declared private...

Form the photo, it does not look like an amoeba to me.

It's 10x time lapse, but there are same interruptions of the video, whenever the ciliate decided to move...
The video covers about one hour in real-time..

Great shot - not easy to follow these little friends. You've been very patient!

Maybe you are interested, how the story goes on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIGncC3Bdkw
Here I tried to show the building of the armor plates after the division in time-lapse.

Nice videos from a interesting location!

The "rotifer" is a ciliate, as you can see the contractile vacuole.

Hi Dave, great pictures - especially the pictures of the corona of Microcodon are stunning! Probably you know the website of Michael Plewka ( https://www.plingfactory.de/pling.html ) which is a great resource for information about rotifers? Monommta : https://www.plingfactory.de/Science/Atlas/Kennka...

Nice - that's a gastrotrich's egg! How long did you observe it?

Hi Charlie, On pg. 185 it is noted recent studies established gastrotrichs do have a sexual phase in a remarkable life cycle: newly hatched are large (2/3rds adult size)...already have developing parthenogenetic eggs. These eggs may hatch a day after the mother was hatched. A total of four of these ...

The gastrotrich is probably Chaetonotus persetosus - I never would have expected it in a only temporarily wet tree hole!
Thank you for sharing!

Michael

Merry Christmas...
...and a happy new year to all of you!

Wishes

Michael

A really nice catch! And yes - gastrotrichs are beautiful creatures. The gastrotrich is a young Lepidodermella sp. as it has big scales without any spikes. To determine the species, it would be necessary to have a closer look at the form of the ventral and dorsal scales, but chances are good that it...

Hi Javier, the anatomy of bdelloid rotifers is very complicated. As I'm not sure, what structure you address as "mouth", I attached a figure from an great old book by Donner: Josef Donner, Rädertiere, Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung W. Keller & Co., Stuttgart 1978 Unfortunately the text is in German, s...

Its not a tick, but a aquatic oribatid mite that live in water. They are not freely swimming and so soft as true water mites but have a very hard shell. For an identification to species-level it is necessary to have a closer look to it.

Great - I always wondered, how they look like.
Only 6 legs? Is this a young one?

Great videos!

Some flatworms are known to feed on hydras. They even integrate the cnidoblast of the hydras and use them - probably - as a defense for themselves.
The flatworm may be Stenostomum unicolor, but it is not possible to be sure with a video in darkfield only.

Thanks for sharing.

I use a slide with an adhesive transparent tape (Tesa) on it. Stretching the tape before putting on the slide may adjust the background color somehow.

The crystalline objects you are observing are birefringent. That means, the refractive index differs in respect to the orientation. Within crossed pol filters, the polarized light of the two pol directions get different phase shifts, as the speed of the light is different for the two orientations. A...

Thank you for your nice and encouraging words!
Observation of the behavior of microscopic life opens a wide field for us enthusiasts!

Thank you to all for your nice words! Is this using the same micro-aquarium design you posted previously, http://www.microbehunter.com/microscopy-forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9693&p=82530#p82554 ? Yes, it's the same type of micro-aquarium: Slide with concave depression to provide enough water, big Vase...

Hello everyone, This spring I found an interesting sessile rotifer in one of my micro-aquariums, which I consider to be Collotheca trilobata (Collins 1872). I observed this animal for 19 days and during this time I filmed the original mother animal as well as the hatched juvenile animal for 4 days c...

Great!

Nice shot! But it can not be C. catalina , as this species has a frontal eyespot. Your little friend has a cervical eyespot (at the posterior side of the "brain"). With nearly all Cephalodellas it is impossible to make a sure diagnosis without analyzing the trophi thoroughly. But this would mean to ...

Is this a 'Trophi" as well? Shot the videos 2 days ago but haven't gotten a positive identification. Ps what is trophi short for? Than you. https://youtu.be/Sx4-yJEMf4g https://youtu.be/iyAMAQ86E2Y Trophus is Latin for "jaw", the plural is trophi and means in our case the set of hard parts inside t...

Hi, hans - great, you hit the mark! You observed the hatching of a bdelloid rotifer. I'm not sure, whether it was somehow accelerated by your procedure, but the young girl seems to feel quite good. I never had the luck to see something like this! The trophi are not growing because they do not consis...

Looks like a egg, but as long as you don't see any embryo, it is impossible to say anything of its origin. It is very small, so I don't believe, it's from a bdelloid. The size of the trophi from your first post was already 17µm, so it would fill the egg totally. As trophi don't grow this would be im...

They can remain in a cystic state for days. A friend told me. that his record for a dried and revived bdelloid is more than 3 dry years! Bdelloids have been found in permanent filters inside coffee makers! In the species that have the ability to carry the offspring to maturity, do these species als...

All rotifers produce eggs - the difference is, whether the eggs are disposed before the embryo develops or if the egg is kept inside the mother until the juvenile animal is fully developed. So you may find eggs in every species but developing embryos only in a few species. Some years ago I published...

Good to know, this is something I was not clear on from the limited reading I have done so far. Would it be accurate to say there are only three states in which they remain viable: extended and active, contracted with only flame cells active, and egg? In particular, if I see one that is extended bu...

Bdelloid rotifers are tough little beasts! They can dry out for month or even years and get active again if the conditions are favorable. The only sign, that the animals are still alive in the contracted state are the active flame cells.