First life found under a microscope

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westy
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First life found under a microscope

#1 Post by westy » Sat Oct 24, 2020 4:35 pm

So after going out this morning and collecting three samples from diffrent meres (shallow Lakes formed during the last ice age (very british term for them)). Today I took a small sample from colemere and stuck it under the scope and despite thinking there would be no life at all given the heavy rainfall, crystal clear water and lack of decaying matter in the sample I did indeed find some life!


** Deleted embarassing videos ** :D
Last edited by westy on Sat Oct 24, 2020 7:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ben

westy
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Re: First life found under a microscope

#2 Post by westy » Sat Oct 24, 2020 6:46 pm

The above are terrible. Don't waste your time!

I made up another slide this time from my Blakemere sample (few miles from Colemere). Sample was essentially the plastic outer bag of a sandbag used to shore up a fishing peg I took the sample from. I honestly didn't expect much given the plastic nature of the sample but I couldn't have been more wrong!

Some of the life in this slide were so big it was impossible to fit in the shot. I could see some of them with the naked eye on the slide!

I'm assuming these are more fly/insect larvae, I'm still trying to find a good reference for waterbourne stuff.

Shot of the cells inside what I guess is an algae of some sort.
Image

Going forward I have no idea on species or even genus/family, probably common as muck on here and for the water sources I took samples from but the anticipation of preparing a slide and then looking around it for life is something I never would have thought I'd find myself doing!

This one didn't move, and it also seemed to be sat on the body of something much larger which was wriggling occasionally.
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Shot of the substrate (plastic structure of the sandbag).
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Very small (realtively!), jelly like, seemed to move by pumping water through it's body (contracted as it propelled itself forwards). This was the only shot I went upto the 10x objective for.
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Half decent shot of the "head" of some what I'm guessing is a larvae of some larger insect? There were a lot of these of various sizes (some almost 4-5 times the size of this one) (4x objective)
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This was a very small (40x objective) jelly like organism. Again no idea what it is!
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Enjoying some lunch?
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Cilla organism? it had a lot of hairs on it used for propulsion
Image
Ben

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Rapidray
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Re: First life found under a microscope

#3 Post by Rapidray » Sat Oct 24, 2020 7:45 pm

# 6 is a testate amoeba. An amoeba that has a shell.
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actinophrys
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Re: First life found under a microscope

#4 Post by actinophrys » Sat Oct 24, 2020 8:27 pm

Some nice finds. The jelly-like organisms look to be ciliates of some sort, the first very possibly Stentor which tend to contract when they swim.
The larva is a ceratopogonid fly, what variously get called punkies, biting midges, or no-see-ums depending on where you are.
The one enjoying lunch is an oligochaete worm.

DonSchaeffer
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Re: First life found under a microscope

#5 Post by DonSchaeffer » Sat Oct 24, 2020 10:33 pm

These are excellent photos.

Chris Dee
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Re: First life found under a microscope

#6 Post by Chris Dee » Sun Oct 25, 2020 5:51 am

Keep at it you'll soon get into the swing of identifying stuff you see. This is a good reference to get you underway: http://www.plingfactory.de/Science/GruK ... e-TL3.html

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Rapidray
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Re: First life found under a microscope

#7 Post by Rapidray » Sun Oct 25, 2020 3:25 pm

Chris Dee wrote:
Sun Oct 25, 2020 5:51 am
Keep at it you'll soon get into the swing of identifying stuff you see. This is a good reference to get you underway: http://www.plingfactory.de/Science/GruK ... e-TL3.html
Saved this link to my iPad - thanks
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mazo4033
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Re: First life found under a microscope

#8 Post by mazo4033 » Sun Oct 25, 2020 3:40 pm

Very cool photos! The one you describe to be under 40x and "jelly like" (image 6) is probably Vorticella campanula, because it has dark cytoplasm and a sort of "sloppy" and "blob" shape to it. And you can see the outline of the stalk at the top of the picture. The last image is maybe some kind of species of hypotrich, or maybe something related to that. :D

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