Frontonia atra

[janvangastel]

I found this large ciliate in my small pond. Given the shape, the dark color, the place of the CV and the macronucleus and the trichocysts I think it is Frantonia atra. Lenght of this ciliate is around 270 microns.

[75RR]

Nice! You seem to have a large selection of ciliates in your pond. Don't recall if you posted a photo of it ... did you?

[janvangastel]

No, but her is one. Its a prefabricated plastic pond. Its really small, about 1.3x1 meter and about 50 cm deep. I made about 4 years ago and never cleaned it. Never added new water. Sometimes it almost dries out and sometimes it splills over.

vijver.jpg (322.05 KiB) Viewed 5571 times

[Rapidray]

A small outdoor terrarium-cool. Provides everything you need in one small area. A great source of life nearby.

[Javier]

Beautiful!

It seems like it's playing...

[janvangastel]

Yes, it looks like some kind of dance. There were four or five present in the sample and they all made about the same kind of movement. I have seen that in more species.

[75RR]

Like that your pond is subject to the vagaries of nature and the seasons. I imagine dragonflies, frogs and birds visit on occasion, adding their contribution to the mix.

[Bruce Taylor]

Excellent! It is sometimes difficult to look inside F. atra because many specimens are just too dark.

[Wes]

Nice video...

...and even nicer pond! Very cool

[micro]

I think I filmed one of these too. Did you use oblique? Your image is more bright vibrant and detailed than mine but the cilia in my picture are more visible for some reason. I think I used the 20x objective where it looks like you used a 40x.

[janvangastel]

Yes, I used oblique illumination.
@75RR: I made this small pond to attract birds for bird photography. Works fine. And yes, from time to time I see a frog there. I didn't see dragonflies.

[Bruce Taylor]

I think I filmed one of these too.

@micro, judging by the shape of the cell and the relative length of its trichocysts, your critter might be a smaller cousin, Frontonia acuminata. If there is a video, I'd be glad to have a look at it.

[micro]

I think I filmed one of these too.

@micro, judging by the shape of the cell and the relative length of its trichocysts, your critter might be a smaller cousin, Frontonia acuminata. If there is a video, I'd be glad to have a look at it.

[Bruce Taylor]

Yup, F. acuminata.

[Unseen World]

There a good website for identifying pond life? Great video!

[janvangastel]

I use this key http://www.wfoissner.at/data_prot/Foiss ... 2large.pdf and this one https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/han ... sequence=1, both downloadable pdf's. And the work of Kahl. Bruce Taylor provided the links to downloadable pdf's of his books some time ago. And here's another one, someone provided a couple of days ago (sorry, forgot the name): http://rodroger.com/images/Microbio/Pro ... 20kudo.pdf And there's this website: http://www.plingfactory.de/Science/GruK ... e-TL3.html.

[Wes]

I use this key http://www.wfoissner.at/data_prot/Foiss ... 2large.pdf and this one https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/han ... sequence=1, both downloadable pdf's. And the work of Kahl. Bruce Taylor provided the links to downloadable pdf's of his books some time ago. And here's another one, someone provided a couple of days ago (sorry, forgot the name): http://rodroger.com/images/Microbio/Pro ... 20kudo.pdf And there's this website: http://www.plingfactory.de/Science/GruK ... e-TL3.html.

Bookmarked! Thanks Jan