Help ID this small bi-flagella

[hkv]

Found many of these swimming among massive amounts of bacteria. 40X Objective + 2X magnification lens. If I have calculated correctly the main body is 11 micrometer long excluding the flagella. A few of the bacterias are shown in the picture (rod-shaped)

[75RR]

Could not find anything under Flagellated Protozoa, might just be a spore.

[hkv]

Cannot reslly be a spore as it was swimming. Also it could twist and reshape its body.

[charlie g]

The excellent context you give of: stagnant water (ie, lots of bacteria), description of active swiming, body changes in shape ' and crisp high magnification image depicting two flagellae..their relative length vrs. body length...and a few bacteria are included in same image capture for size comparison...excellent descriptions, excellent context...sweet!

You really have to go back...or try to minds eye recall...are not both falagella coming from anterior end of this small stagnant water free living flagellate? Is it just by chance that the flagellum dagling posterior..is anterior attached , but in this image it's 'behind the body' of the flagellate as we view the protist?

If both flagellae ( I sense this the case) are attached at anterior end, this is from the large group: Bodonidae (family)....look at Genus Bodo ,by Google...or in a free online text like Kudo's Protozoology.

nice image...especially if live wetmount slide...and no use of viscosity tool:1.5% methylcellulose.

With low cost 1.5% methylcellulose you can image capture these live...right up to your 100X oil-objective (due the viscosity tool of the methylcellulose). thanks for this flagelate , hkv, charlie guevara

[75RR]

If swimming and twisting and reshaping its body then ... yes, not a spore.
Best guess then would be anisonema, though they look a little rounder in the images I have seen.
As charlie g says, two flagella from the anterior end, one dragged behind it. Is this the case?

[actinophrys]

There are in fact some biflagellate spores – gekko's Dictyuchus video gives a neat example – but I'd be surprised if this isn't some protozoan. Like Charlie says, it looks very much like Bodo; according to Patterson's guide those "attach to the substrate by one flagellum, and are easily distinguished by their flicking movements when attached". But if not there are several other Euglenozoa, and some Cercozoa etc., with the same pattern of one trailing and one leading flagella.

I think changing shape would rule out some like Anisonema, which appear more rigid as well as more oval. It could even suggest something like Cercomonas (former Cercobodo, but not actually near Bodonidae), which are plastic and may form pseudopod-like projections, if it is indeed that type of change instead of just helical twisting. All in all it's hard for me to guess what the exact range of possibilities might be. There are after all even new types still being discovered among little flagellates like these.

[hkv]

The excellent context you give of: stagnant water (ie, lots of bacteria), description of active swiming, body changes in shape ' and crisp high magnification image depicting two flagellae..their relative length vrs. body length...and a few bacteria are included in same image capture for size comparison...excellent descriptions, excellent context...sweet!

You really have to go back...or try to minds eye recall...are not both falagella coming from anterior end of this small stagnant water free living flagellate? Is it just by chance that the flagellum dagling posterior..is anterior attached , but in this image it's 'behind the body' of the flagellate as we view the protist?

If both flagellae ( I sense this the case) are attached at anterior end, this is from the large group: Bodonidae (family)....look at Genus Bodo ,by Google...or in a free online text like Kudo's Protozoology.

nice image...especially if live wetmount slide...and no use of viscosity tool:1.5% methylcellulose.

With low cost 1.5% methylcellulose you can image capture these live...right up to your 100X oil-objective (due the viscosity tool of the methylcellulose). thanks for this flagelate , hkv, charlie guevara

Thanks all! Tough case. I do not have access to methyl cellulose, but will try to get some. Good to have!

I manage to find a movie of the animalcule in the picture. Here are 35 seconds of him messing around.

[75RR]

Interesting video, very sharp and clear.
I will leave it to others to have a go but I must say it does not look like both flagella are attached to the anterior, with all those twists and turns I would have expected to see it on occasion trailing next to its body - yet it never seems to.

[hkv]

Thanks 75RR. I also find it interesting that it only whips one of his flagella. The other one in the rear is just dragged along. No active movement.

[charlie g]

Unlike your high magnification image...this video capture is really too small an image size to tell if the posterior trailing flagellum is adherent along the part of the body (undilliform?..I have no open text by me now!) it tragresses along to the back pole of this beastie. It is just my impression..but in this water film ..it must be ( the sweet spot of water thickness/water depth I call it for best working distance of high magnification dry objectives...you have that 'sweet spot ' in water film under the cover slip in this flic!)...it must be a rather thin depth of water colum...the protist indeed twists and roves...but rarely leaves the depth of focus...so I have no sense of this protist 'rolling/ spiralling' as it moves..so I have no firm sense that I see all the body sides.

Indeed there are vast tribes of these 'heterotrophic nano-flagellates'...start with family Bodonidae...start with free living/ freshwater...you have an ecologic nitche (?sp?) in which example images are online..and in Kudo's free online text.

Like so many small amoebae...huge clusters of species.

The size scale of the flagelate in the video seems much larger (lower magnification) than the excellent initial still image...is this the same organism and you just made stills as well as the video clip?

Often it's good to know the enviromental nitche, the context, as you do...I almost always feel pleasure in these appreciations...then to track down a Genus designation...that is terrific...species /sub species...best of luck. I really enjoyed the context and images you share with us here, hkv...thank you. charlie guevara

[hkv]

Thanks Charlie G! Very good input and observations.

Unlike your high magnification image...this video capture is really too small an image size to tell if the posterior trailing flagellum is adherent along the part of the body.

Yes, I have now included a higher magnification movie. Also slowed it down by 50% to allow observation. Contrast has been enhanced to show more details. 40X objective (NA 0.85), 2X magnification lens. 2.5X photo eyepiece projected on a full frame sensor. Then cropped in imovie. Should equal approx. 1000X magnification looking through the eye pieces. Of course, some empty magnification is present.

The size scale of the flagelate in the video seems much larger (lower magnification) than the excellent initial still image...is this the same organism and you just made stills as well as the video clip?

The movies show a second subject. I found many of these. Tens of them.

Here is the movie. Remember to click on the "show full screen" button so you can watch in full screen.

[charlie g]

Yes, yes, even before the high magnification flic is played...I see in the organism in the still image,,that the posterior flagellum is body attached...a notable body fold/ridge apparent in your images,hkv,

Thanks to Professor Bronislav Mark Honigberg we see ( by microscopic observations of shape, of morphology) in1963...we can sense your family Bodonidae flagellate is one group of Order: Kinetoplastida...same Order also has kin: family Trypanostomatidae..huge group of parasitic flagellates.

As I enjoy your image captures...my minds eye senses the similarities to the dreadful hordes of kin trypanosome parasites.

Next growth season you,I, all forum members should observe simple wetmount slides of milk weed latex sap...to observe plant parasite trypanosome flagellates!

thanks for this careful image series, consise description of these rooting phagocytic flagellates you encountered, hkv.

[Rylander]

Could it be Cercomonas directa see: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/224 ... irecta-and

Rylander

[charlie g]

This is hkv's thread on ID...so I guess I can grope for ID speculations. In hkv's two video flics, and the initial still image capture...no hints of a 'Cercomonad amoebic body behavior'. This active flagellate hkv shares has a rooting behavior much like the larger/unrelated flagellate:Peranema.Both flagellates very much behave like ferral pigs in a muddy cropland border...literally rooting about as a phagocytic eatting mechanism based on the flagellates anterior pole (were a 'mouth' is located in both flagellates).

Cercomonads eat by an obvious psuedopodial mechanism...cercomonads do not so clearly root about with strictly their anterior pole doing the investgative searching.

All with respect for these important food web players at sewage plants, soils, etc. , both Cercomonads and Bodonidae heterotrophic nano flagellates..and the larger members of both tribes. charlie guevara

[hkv]

Thanks Charlie G and Rylander! I think we are closing in. Bodonidae looks very similar, but I can only see one flagella in the pictures online. Quality is rather poor so it is hard to see. The size does also match my specimen.

[kit1980]

Cannot reslly be a spore as it was swimming. Also it could twist and reshape its body.

Aquatic fungi have zoospores (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoospore)
So it can move using flagellum and still be a spore!

[exmarine]

Hi Kit, your small bi-flagella is...................... Litonotus Cygnus which is a very large and elegant member of the genus (sometimes spelt Lionotus ). The ingestion region is extended giving the appearance of a long neck.SO there it is in all its glory. Hope that helps.