microbe ID

[NEILH]

I wet some roof moss for a few days hoping to find some Tardigrades. Squeezed out some the water from the moss and could not find any Tardigrades. What I did find were some great Rotifers and super fast and small microbes running all over turning flips. What are these small microbes?

[actinophrys]

It is not very much to go on – there are not many things that can be identified without an image or even knowing the shape. If they are indeed running, that is to say crawling quickly along surfaces rather than just swimming about, you might compare hypotrich ciliates (e.g. Oxytricha, Tachysoma, Histriculus, and many others), which would not be at all surprising to find along with bdelloid rotifers in such habitats. On the other hand, if they are that much smaller you could mean something completely different, like hymenostome ciliates or even flagellates! We'd need details to suggest more than vague possibilities.