Cliates? - playing tag

[SWmicro]

- playing tag or trying to dance a conga !?

conga.jpg (27.88 KiB) Viewed 1684 times

Found while looking at some rotifers :- at first sighting I thought "a bunch of eggs" but no! some were independently mobile .

At one point (at about 1:30) an individual appears to have purpose - to kidnap and incorporate a smaller nearby group. Perhaps I should put this in the "morphology and Behavior " section ?

Any thoughts on what they are and doing ?
https://youtu.be/1f7rTL1ozYI

[DonSchaeffer]

Great images. I am fascinated by the way ciliates like to rub against each other sometimes. Bacteria have made it a way of life.

[Bruce Taylor]

That's pretty interesting! These are small cyrtophorids (probably in family Chilodonellidae). I suspect what we're seeing here is preconjugal "clumping," or "cell agglutination", which has been observed in other ciliates, especially Paramecium. I think an epidemic of conjugation has begun in this population (typically, this is a response to adverse conditions, such as nutrient deficiency). Clumps of cells form, likely in response to chemical attractants (pheromones). Eventually, mating pairs of compatible partners will separate from the group and complete their conjugation.

[SWmicro]

Thanks Don & Bruce,
these were in a mini aquarium (fancy name for a small pot ! ) that I had been dipping in to for some time now (I am a very bad scientist - I should have noted time when set up, etc!) and probably I overlooked them as being individually/un-clumped too small. Then it was left awhile and had nearly dried out when I noticed and rescued it with more rainwater a few days ago. So --

typically, this is a response to adverse conditions

-- ah, yes. !

Today I have only found a few double and triples, so the event may be over, I'll keep a watch on it now and maybe split it into a second culture to be stressed again later.
Off to google cyrtophorids and conjugal activities etc.,

many thanks.

[DonSchaeffer]

You are a naturalist--naive and open---keep it up.

[RobBerdan]

Very interesting I don't think I have seen them before.
RB