Strange cell. Ciliate?

[nucleoPhil]

https://youtu.be/MBDCwX0Naak

Found in a freshwater dune swale sample I took last month.
Not my best video but at least I caught it on camera. I have not had any luck finding others like it in the sample.
Could those green things be algae?
My best guess right now is a fissuring Stentor but I don't know.
Any ideas?

[Bruce Taylor]

This is a badly damaged heterotrich ciliate. It is almost certainly a Spirostomum with a mangled anterior, but there is a smaller chance that it could be Condylostoma (we'd have to see a healthy specimen to be 100% sure). The cell does not contain endosymbiotic algae. That large empty area at one end is the posterior water-expulsion vesicle (it seems to have a collecting canal, which is more evidence that this is Spirostomum).

[nucleoPhil]

Yes! I do remember seeing some ciliates that resembled Spirostomum thoughbI did not know that is what they're called. I may have it on video. Let me check.

[nucleoPhil]

Hi Bruce.

Here is some video I took of what could potentially be the Spirostomum? These were both taken from the same sample as the other.

https://youtu.be/QS9McZXEvYE
https://youtu.be/-df0c9RtcOw

Thanks!
Joey

[Bruce Taylor]

Yup, Spirostomum (the very long ones here are probably S. ambiguum). I see there's another mangled individual in the first video, too.

You're right, the second video does show conjugation. That might account for some of the damaged cells, too. Conjugal attachment sometimes goes wrong (a valuable lesson for humans, maybe ).

[nucleoPhil]

Wow that's incredible! So they just end up ripping each other apart? Sounds quite familiar!