MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Nice video! :) It is not Gonostomum affine , or any member of the family Gonostomatidae. Ciliates in that family have an arrangement of oral structures (adoral zone of membranelles, or "AZM", and associated undulating membranes) which is known as the "Gonostomum pattern". In that pattern, the AZM ru...

@MitchW It's a Stentor. Identification to species would begin with a clear view of the macronucleus.

Re. sources...I can't think of many comprehensive guides to heterotrophic flagellates, and the ones I know of are old and difficult to get. Part of the problem is the word "flagellate" itself, an obsolete classification that ropes together all kinds of unrelated organisms. The ancestor of all eukary...

I looked it up online and now assume that it doesn't have a lorica, just a spiral body. Is that right? Yes, that's right. It's an understandable error. The pellicle is thick and rather stiff, and does look a bit like a lorica! Heteronema spirale is a heterotrophic (non-photosynthetic) euglenoid, fi...

Heteronema spirale.

I believe this is Mastigamoeba setosa.

This is Clathrulina elegans . Biflagellate swarmer cells sometimes attach to mature organisms to form daisy-chain colonies, as in this rather cool image by Martin Kreutz: https://realmicrolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Clathrulina-elegans-P7194341-Martin-Kreutz.jpg From: https://realmicrolife.c...

This is two stylonychine ciliates (probably Stylonychia) in conjugation. They are exchanging gametes.

Well, that worked perfectly. One quick puff with the bulb blower and all was clear.

Thanks for the help, everyone!

Thanks again, PeteM. I'll see if I can remove the debris with a bulb blower and/or soft brush, but if it comes to using solvents (even water!), I think I'll let them bring in the technician!

I was back at the museum yesterday, and set out to analyze the source of the dark spot in the light path. I brought a centering telescope, but it wasn't needed in the end because the problem was not subtle. ;) There's some loose debris inside the Nomarki/DIC intermediate tube, and a big piece is stu...

Thanks for the advice, PeteM! I'll bring a centering telescope on my next visit (and an air-blower bulb).

Well, I managed to remove the drawing attachment. It did indeed have a spring-loaded plunger, as PeteM suggested (with a slot-headed screw in the end of the knurled knob). Knowing that "stuck oil" was probably the issue, I was a bit more forceful with the assembly, and pushed the dovetail against th...

Thanks deBult! That's all very useful information.

cheers,
Bruce

@Scarodactyl I tried the different settings on the drawing tube (A, B and C) but didn't see much difference in terms of light transmission. There's also a sort of rotating metal "hood" at the distal end of the tube, and when open it throws a distracting shaft of light over the middle of the visual f...

Thanks, PeteM. Next time I'm at the lab I'll give that a try. It seems quite possible that the screw oil is gunked up. That was certainly the case with the translation control knob on the prism slider, which required a LOT of persuasion, at first. I think this BH2 has received less love and attentio...

At the museum lab where I sometimes look at ciliates there are two Olympus BH2 microscopes. One of them has a drawing attachment. The BH2 with the drawing attachment seems to be a bit less brightly illuminated than the other one, and consequently the images I make with it seem to be less clear. Is i...

The term "Heliozoa" is a mess. Traditionally, the group incorporated organisms from many separate, unrelated lineages, united only by having a cell that looks vaguely like the sun. :D Some systems of classification retain a group called Heliozoa, but this is mostly restricted to a group called Centr...

A handy guide with color images, fairly up-to-date: Ciugulea, Ionel, and Richard E. Triemer. "A color atlas of photosynthetic euglenoids." (2010). In German, difficult to find and taxonomically out of date...but very comprehensive: Huber-Pestalozzi, Gottfried. "Das Phytoplankton des SuBwassers. 4. T...

I believe Pseudovorticella have small blisters? Some species (such as P. monilata ) have conspicuous raised "tubercles", but others are quite smooth. All have an underlying pellicular pattern (the "silverline system") resembling brickwork, or a mesh; whereas, species of Vorticella have a silverline...

In a revision of the genus from 1931, Noland & Finlay wrote: The length of the stalk has long been used as a specific trait. While it is true that the stalk length of various species does tend toward a modal value, the individual variation is too great to justify placing much taxonomic value on the ...

It has a long oral bulge, so is certainly not Enchelyodon or Holophrya , and is the wrong shape for Homalozoon . Apoamphileptus claparedii (= Amphileptus claparedii , often misspelled A. claparedei ) is a species with multiple contractile vacuoles, so that can be ruled out as well (the illustration ...

Euglena mutabilis.

Tetrahymena is very likely (the shape and size are right, the mouth is in the right place, and they often congregate in large numbers, like this). However, identifying ciliates in dark field is difficult. Do you have bright field footage?

Actually....I've just watched the whole segment, and realize that I was too hasty. When I saw the video this morning, I only watched the first few seconds, before running out to the store. After watching the rest of the video, I think this is a different vampyrellid, Leptophrys vorax (previously kno...

It is Vampyrella, a cercozoan amoeboid that feeds on filamentous green algae.

josmann wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 28, 2023 12:10 pm

Do the other P. caudatum morphotypes share the star shaped contractile vacuole? I did observe that in this specimen.

Yes, all members of the Paramecium Paramecium subgenus (at least nine morphospecies, apart from some recently identified cryptic species) have similar canal-fed CVs.

Very nice microscopy! Oh I wanted to ask - what is the term for the lattice structure that makes up the cell membrane? The pellicle. I don't think you can identify this individual to species level. Paramecium identification can be surprisingly difficult, and can require careful inspection of micronu...

Oh, I'm sorry...I overlooked the second flagellum! I think flagellated amoebozoans (in the Archamoeba clade) mostly have a single cilium, though the type species of Mastigella , M. polymastix , has more. Perhaps a cercozoan amoeboid, then? Cercomonads are biflagellate. But amoeboids are outside my c...

Yes, they're hard to film! But you did a great job.