MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

I still don't see anything like a cyst, here. The ciliate is in a tight spot, squeezed on all sides by algae and debris and evidently being compressed by the coverslip as well. In these conditions, many ciliates lose their normal shape and become very flexible and deformable. Early in the video, som...

I don't see a cyst, here...just a big, well-fed ciliate, slowly rotating. It looks very much like Ophyroglena, to me. However, I was unable to see the mouth--a very distinctive organ, in that genus--so I'm not completely sure.

This is a big hypotrich ciliate called Urostyla grandis. So, a one-celled critter, not a worm.

Very nice images! The first ciliate does not have square vacuoles, but has eaten some square algae (diatoms I think). It has trichocysts , and is a very enthusiastic algae-eater, and appears to have an oral (cytopharyngeal) basket. If so, it is likely a nassophorean of some kind. Perhaps a slightly ...

Poor thing! The damaged organism is not a ciliate, but a worm of some kind (possibly a flatworm).

This is Amphileptus...probably A. pleurosigma.

Yes, it's Aspidisca cicada.

Magnification is pretty low, so the most I can say is that they are heterotrophic (non-photosynthetic) flagellates of some kind. Unfortunately, that description spans the entire eukaryote tree of life (including the last common ancestor of all complex cells!). I'm not sure the joined pair is conjuga...

It is a species of Cryptomonas ...a non-photosynthetic one, of the kind previously called Chilomonas . Cryptists are neither ciliates, nor dinoflagellates, but a very deep-branching group, likely related to (or branching within) the superkingdom Archaeplastida, a group that includes red algae, green...

> is not "snowy" at all! A good point! This one should be named " Prorodon anthracinus ." :D More seriously, I am not actually sure that such dark cytoplasm has been recorded for the species, so there is room for doubt about the identification. P. niveus is not a species I encounter in my own sample...

The mouth appears to be apical (at the anterior of the cell), and it has a posterior CV, so it is not Ophryoglena . Also, members of that genus tend to rotate along their longitudinal axis, which this fellow is not doing. I believe this is probably a dark specimen of Prorodon niveus (known in many o...

It is clearly not Frontonia. It has a very large buccal cavity, but is oddly shaped. I would suspect a damaged or malformed bursariid (since you fond Bursaria in the same water).

Ah, well there it is: Trachelius ovum. The cytoplasm is distinctive, as is that little round donut of a mouth.

Compression is a useful technique! While it distorts the overall shape of the critter, it often exposes details that would otherwise be invisible.

A really nice, clear video! Great use of phase. I understood paramecia have 2 vacuoles. This has 3. Usually, there are only 2 CVs. However, Sergei Fokin says P. multimicronucleatum sometimes has 3 CVs (and at least one species, P. ugandae has 5-7!). In any case, the critter you've recorded here is d...

Hmmm...very hard to be sure what's going on, there! FWIW, Trachelius does have multiple contractile vacuoles, scattered around the cell (I am thinking of that genus mainly because of the overall appearance of the cytoplasm, and the round mouth). But, whatever this is, I think it is squashed beyond r...

It is not Frontonia , which has a very different kind of mouth, shaped like a peaked doorway, with an undulating membrane on one side, three rows of fused cilia on the other side, and preoral and postoral "sutures" at each end. Some other features of Frontonia we don't see here: a generally flattene...

Yes, a hypotrich. To identify it below subclass, we'd need to see the distribution of cirri on the ventral surface. It resembles Urostyla, but there are other possibilities.

They are ciliates....probably hypotrichs. Do you have any brightfield images? Dark field often does not show the features needed for ciliate identification.

The first two are Stentors. The third is in the genus Lacrymaria.

I think "King" was just doing tricks not eating. Oh, "King" was eating...or trying to eat, at any rate. :D Frontonia are notorious gluttons, and cyanobacteria is definitely on the menu. This one couldn't get it all in, and had to back off. At the 34 second mark, you can see the critter thrashing ar...

Fun! Yes it's Frontonia...probably F. leucas, but if it is longer than 400 micrometres, or so, it could be F. paramagna.

It's a common marine euplotid called Uronychia.

Because of a taxonomic error in the early 20th century, ciliates identified in older texts as " Prorodon " are now considered holophryids ( Holophrya , Vdacnyophrya , etc.), and the genus Prorodon now comprises ciliates previously called Pseudoprorodon . The critters in your video have a contractile...

I suspect it's a biflagellate cell in division.

It's a species of Ophryoglena.

Excellent! It is actually a very compressed Paramecium . Most Frontonia species have a single contractile vacuole, whereas this critter has two (bivacuolate Frontonia do exist, but this is not one of them). When Paramecia are squashed under the coverslip, they can lose their normal shape, and begin ...

Litonotus cygnus, an extremely contractile/extensile species.

It is not a nassulid, but something in the family Chilodonellidae (Trithigmostoma, Chilodonella, Pseudochilodonopsis, etc.). We'd need to see more detail to identify this to genus level (ciliature, distribution of contractile vacuoles, etc.).

Thanks Bruce. So Euplotes is found in both fresh and salt water? Wouldn't their biology need to be different to survive in both environments? Yup. Some species of Euplotes are found only in salt and brackish water, some are found only in freshwater. Some morphospecies have been reported in both. Ei...