Leaf miner plant sections!

[charlie g]

I enjoy microscopy of leaf-miners larval activities...I do not enjoy their destruction of oh so many plants.

With a fascinating botanical plant study underway in this forum (thank you, John B./Mr.Sonchus!)...it was on my mind when the dogs and I encountered this huge mined-leaf 9/5/15. Can that huge leaf mine have an intact cuticle+epidermal cell layer?

If so...that nasty magot did the microtome work for me

The yellow larvae is on leaf-mine side near my thumb.

[charlie g]

At the bench I placed the botanical leaf mine and it's culprit in a watch glass. I left a globule of water on top of the leaf mine over night. Yes the cuticle is funtional...the water stayed in place as if placed on a sheet of wax (huge contact angle on the drop of water).

Sigh..it seems only the cuticle and upper exterior epidermal walls were untouched by the magot. It's in that larvaes intrest never to pierce the cuticle and upper surface of the host leaf...for climate control in the grubs leaf mine.

However...all the stomatal complexes are intact for study of their fibrillar anchorage to adjacent cells.

[charlie g]

With 60X DL phase,the stomatal complexes exhibit anchorage fibrillar networks! The pattern of stomatal complexes distribution on this upper leaf surface is rather random...a dicot plant trait.

[charlie g]

So the grub kept his outter epidermal cell wall intact...but scooped out most of these epidermal cells content. The larvae never chewed on the stomatal complexes...all the stomatal openning closed. Of course this grub never perforated the leaf outermost cuticle.

In image #204, there is hint of this plant leaf haveing a combination of: subsidiary cells+the two guard cells, and of course the anchorage fibrillar network is imaged.

[charlie g]

There are oh so many insect larvae leaf miners...I tip my hat to folk who can keep up with all the particulars. But it makes for excellent microscopy..without a microtome!

To my surprize, in both my "How to Know the Immature Insects", H.F.Chu, 1949,and in my "How to Know the Insects", H.E.Jaques,1947...there is not a single head illustration of these magot types with the anatomical parts of the head labelled!

So I can't tell you the names of the two dorsal breathing tube openning appendages, nor the names of the two posterior breathing tube appendages. What an explosion of morphologic detal to track!

In images 137 and 141 the mouth is up/ the twin breathing tube appendages are bottom. A lot of midsection anatomy...I sure hope that string of repeating ovals are not future generations unfertilized eggs!? On the posterior end, image 149, the two brathing tube appendages are pointing down...humm both anterior and posterior breathing tubes are at dorsal locations of this grub.

[jwsmith]

insect-larvae-as-microtome...
that's imaginative...!....

Judd

[charlie g]

For both bedsores, bad burns , areas of gangrene on the body surface...they use maggotts...the maggotts only eat the dead tissue..it actually helps healing...but it makes me itchy to think about a wound dressing holding maggotts to the wound! charlie guevara

[mrsonchus]

Hey Charlie, what a great series - really interesting. Superb pictures too. I love a story of an investigation like this, they're always inspiring not to mention interesting. Super stomatal images, never knew about the anchorage fibers....

Graet on the eye too, lovely colourful & bright images. Please kee up the good & fascinating work!

[JimT]

Agree with John B. Interesting story and images.

[gekko]

Thank you, Charlie, for the interesting post. All the images (including your dog) are very beautiful. But what makes this post especially interesting is the informative narrative (akin to John B's posts). One learns something new in addition to enjoying the colorful images. I've never tried "intact" leaves: maybe I'll try and see if I can get anything interesting. I am amazed that you could show the stomata from a whole leaf. Very good phase contrast too.

[charlie g]

There are much smaller leaf miners than this monster...for many of the smaller larvae, they keep their lair ( their leaf mine)within the specific leafs spongy cell layers...for these when you snip off a cover slip sized piece of leaf...you from the top leaf surface can look down into a few intact cell layers...so the view is confusing...there you due need a microtome!

Or with a single edge razor...you can tangental to the leaf surface try your luck at achieving a small patch of one cell layer...it's terrific plant microscopy...and like onions...I'm sure there are leaves in which the epidermal outtermost layer more redily offers up single cell layers.

Thanks all for looking...and if it catches your fancy...keep an eye out for leaf miners. charlie guevara

[CaterpillarGuy]

Great pics and I was unaware of the existence of leaf miners. Fascinating that they can eat their way around a leaf while not breaking through to either surface. How do they get in there? Are the eggs injected? I may have some of that sort of damage to my pole-bean plants just this summer, but no obvious larvae. Have to look more carefully.

[Seb28]

Nice images and interesting story.

[gekko]

I looked in the yard but could not see any leaf miners (which would have been more in line with my method of working than mrsonchus's fancy microtomes So now I guess I'll have to wait for robotic microtomes to become available.

[charlie g]

Hi, gekko...actually I 'think' there are places which you can send specimens to to be sectioned...I think I heard once. charlie guevara

[gekko]

Hi, gekko...actually I 'think' there are places which you can send specimens to to be sectioned...I think I heard once. charlie guevara

As far as I know, there is only one place that does a perfect job, but, unfortunately, it is across the ocean .

[Cyclops]

Very interesting, I like the fact that you can clearly see the stomata!

[charlie g]

gekko, cyclops, and all forum folk...please give ubiquitous leaf-mined foliage a try on your microscopes?!

[mrsonchus]

An excellent & interesting image - really like it!