Suctorians

[KurtM]

Here are a few images of some Tokophrya sp. suctorians I've run across recently. Such strange little monsters I don't often run across, but a recent freshwater sample has loads of them. In the following images they're in hunting mode, and you oughta see what happens when an errant ciliate comes bumbling along and bumps into one of them. Hint: It's pretty much the last thing Mr. Ciliate does. These guys are the very devil to get a halfway decent image of with those amazing tentacles poking out in all directions, but at least they occasionally keep still long enough to shoot a stack. Except when feeding, then they're in more or less constant motion. It's slow motion, but it's motion. What I'm trying to say is that I haven't gotten anything close to a usable image of a suctorian feeding yet, but I've sure got a few bad ones.

[Javier]

Those are amazing shots, Kurt. I love the detail on the tentacles. Is one of the ciliates into cell division process?

Congratulations and thanks for sharing.

[Dennis]

Good find !
Pretty sure I never saw them before. They look like they have antennas (like TV and radio)
-Dennis

[Dubious]

Great photos!

[imkap]

Great, thanks for sharing

[Luis Carlos]

Great photos and information

[Sure Squintsalot]

Looks awesome!!

(Thanks, especially, for the scale bars!!)

[KurtM]

Thanks all!

Is one of the ciliates into cell division process?

Javier, I haven't observed any of 'my' suctorians to be reproducing as of yet. If I'm guessing correctly, the feature you're asking about might be the circular shape I'll call a vacuole, although I'm really not the least bit certain what it is, exactly.But it does suddenly close, and then slowly re-open again, in a very vacuole-like fashion. For anyone who wonders what the deal with suctorians is, I thought the Microcosmos crew gave a nice overview, plus explanation of how/why suctorians came to be classified as ciliates, on their video:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16189&e=1&view=unread#unread

[Javier]

Thanks all!

Is one of the ciliates into cell division process?

Javier, I haven't observed any of 'my' suctorians to be reproducing as of yet. If I'm guessing correctly, the feature you're asking about might be the circular shape I'll call a vacuole, although I'm really not the least bit certain what it is, exactly.But it does suddenly close, and then slowly re-open again, in a very vacuole-like fashion. For anyone who wonders what the deal with suctorians is, I thought the Microcosmos crew gave a nice overview, plus explanation of how/why suctorians came to be classified as ciliates, on their video:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16189&e=1&view=unread#unread

Thank you!

[xioz]

The photos came out very well, I wondered how well photo stacking would work with Suctorians after my first glimpse of them. I am thinking I will stick with video as it seems everything moves in the micro world!