Found a thing
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Found a thing
I took a sample of soil from a new pot plant, I was looking for nematodes under the stereo microscope, didn’t find any but I did spot this. I have no idea what it is, if I didn’t know that ciliates reproduce by mitosis I would swear this is some kind of egg sack producing a bunch of ciliates, although they may be a bit big, this was recorded under between 30x and 40x magnification. I was using my Brunel Microscopes BMDZ.
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Re: Found a thing
Looks like some kind of colony.
Re: Found a thing
Looks like ciliates feeding on something they found.
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Re: Found a thing
Thank you, both answers makes sense.
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Re: Found a thing
Yes, a ciliate feeding frenzy. The usual suspect in a scene of this kind would be a histophagous (tissue-eating) Tetrahymena.
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Re: Found a thing
Just googled them, yes they look very similar. Thank you for the ID. It makes far more sense that a colony of these Tetrahymena should form around a food source than my initial idea of some kind of ciliate egg sack, which I knew was impossible.Bruce Taylor wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2023 5:23 pmYes, a ciliate feeding frenzy. The usual suspect in a scene of this kind would be a histophagous (tissue-eating) Tetrahymena.
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Re: Found a thing
There are ciliates that form reproductive cysts, which are a little like egg sacks.
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Re: Found a thing
What was the magnification? Stereo microscopes aren't that powerful.
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Re: Found a thing
I have a zoom stereo microscope, the magnification was somewhere between the 3 and 4. I guess approaching 40x equivalent to compound microscope. I was just using the stereo microscope to do a quick scan of the soil in a Petri dish to see if there was anything interesting; there was. I should have taken a pipette and transferred it a slide to look more closely on the compound scope but I just didn’t have the heart to disturb them, they looked like they were having fun.DonSchaeffer wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2023 7:40 pmWhat was the magnification? Stereo microscopes aren't that powerful.
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Re: Found a thing
I will have to read up more on this, it’s all so fascinating, there’s always so much more to learn.Bruce Taylor wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2023 6:14 pmThere are ciliates that form reproductive cysts, which are a little like egg sacks.