Pond Scum Reflections

[rf044]

The urge to reflect on pond scum came over me yesterday when new discoveries and frontiers were opened. Generally, scum is thought to be something to avoid. Webster describes it as 1) extraneous matter on the surface of a liquid, 2) the scoria of molten metals, or 3) a vile, worthless, or rotten class of a population. All-in-all scum should be avoided.

However, yesterday, several findings changed my perspective on scum. Real pair of vorticella were working their wonders. They were drawing in material from a considerable distance. Awesome action of the cilia. The sudden contraction of the stem with their wonderful myoneme was very impressive. Oh, I know, you can find pictures of vorticella in books or see videos on YouTube. But, these were real and right in front of me! The reality of life and all its changes really came home when an amoeba slowly moved in and consumed one of the pair.

A short distance away a cyclops became immobilized by the evaporation of the water. The revelation of the transparency of its body and the fact that there were many, many appendages all over its body was something that you don’t often see in texts.

Still further a fantastic creature showed itself. The first view was a lateral view while it munched on detritus. It had approximately 18 segments, was translucent, had long oar-like setae at each segment, and clearly had a GI tract. One of the most remarkable things was the long proboscis like appendage at the front. It used this along with the cilia to sense its surrounding. When it ate, it seemed like a portion of the body came forward to get material. It reminded me of the movement of a shark’s jaws when biting.

The internet helped me with identifying this critter at
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/ind ... /worm.html.
It seems it was an Oligochaete and probably Chaetochaster diastrophus. Who ever thought there was a microscopic worm that looked like a Viking warship from the side? Anyway, for me, the definition of scum now has several qualifiers. It really isn’t that much different from what we see around us daily in the 'big' world … just smaller and every bit as surprising.

I wonder what the philosophers of old would have said had they known of microscopes.

Bob

[75RR]

Indeed! If there is water there is life. Every stream, pond, swamp and birdbath becomes a potential treasure trove ... and then there is the sea!