Damaged alga or Vagincola?

[75RR]

Plan 40x/0.65, DIC, 25 images stacked in Photoshop

[billbillt]

Great!... That DIC makes it look like you could reach in the photo and touch it!..

BillT

[KurtM]

Yep, very striking image, just beautiful!

[75RR]

Many thanks billbillt and KurtM

[vasselle]

Bonjour
Très beau
Cordialement seb

[JimT]

Colors and detail are most interesting.

[gekko]

Great image. Very beautiful. Are you sure it is damaged?

[billben74]

Wonderful clarity.
nice pic.

[75RR]

Many thanks vasselle, JimT, gekko and billben74

Are you sure it is damaged?

I assumed so from the end (looks torn) but it may just be an unusual alga. Does seem somewhat trumpet shaped.

[Johann]

Interesting...
Very good and clear image.

[exmarine]

Very good image so 75RR what do you think it is?

I am going for Vagincola a peritrich ciliate. It should be very interesting to see what members come up with because there is plenty of room for debate. I will give my reasons why I have said I think its a
Vagincola. This is so I can add something to the debate which I hope endures.

[gekko]

I thought that t might be Vagincola too, but I felt that I didn't know enough to suggest it.

[75RR]

Many thanks Johann and exmarine.

Have posted the image in Identification help in the hope the one of our occasional knowledgeable visitors might see it.
With so many posts in Pictures and Videos things drop out of sight very quickly.

Still looking forward to exmarine's explanation.

[c-krebs]

Looks to me like an empty peritrich ciliate lorica (could be Vaginicola) that has been "occupied" by some opportunistic squatters... what they are I don't know.

Nice clean, clear DIC image!

[exmarine]

The reason I thought it might be Vagincola is because, the only cilia that are evident are those in wreaths at the anterior end. The cytoplasm of this species is green owing to symbiotic green algae.
The ciliates project from the lorica when feeding but can contract into it for protection when stimulated
e.g. by vibration. A contractile vacuole is visible, the lorica is attached to a filament of alga.

These are my thoughts on the subject, I would appreciate more comments from the membership on their thoughts, thank you.

p.s. I might be totally wrong.

[Rodney]

Really nice and clear capture.

Rodney

[75RR]

Many thanks c-krebs

Looks to me like an empty peritrich ciliate lorica (could be Vaginicola) that has been "occupied" by some opportunistic squatters... what they are I don't know.

That would confuse things nicely!

[75RR]

Thanks exmarine

The reason I thought it might be Vagincola is because, the only cilia that are evident are those in wreaths at the anterior end. The cytoplasm of this species is green owing to symbiotic green algae.
The ciliates project from the lorica when feeding but can contract into it for protection when stimulated
e.g. by vibration. A contractile vacuole is visible, the lorica is attached to a filament of alga.

All sounds very plausible. Have never seen one myself so I can not comment.

[75RR]

Thanks Rodney

[Bruce Taylor]

Great picture of...beats me. It is definitely not Vaginicola: the ragged, fringed top edge of that tubular structure, and the general asymmetry of the thing, rule out any sort of loricate peritrich. I don't see any particular reason to think we're looking at a ciliate. I don't see cilia.

[exmarine]

Hi Bruce,
With cilia it can be present but not viewable, if the subject was stained with iodine then the cilia or flagella would become visible. Its a quirk of nature. Also Vagincola are sessile, as shown in the photo.

[exmarine]

I have just found a thread on this site about Vagincola its by molehill with billporter 1456 who is keen on the subject of Vagincola adding his thoughts.
Come on Bill join the fray and put us all out of our misery.

All the best.

[Bruce Taylor]

Hi, exmarine.

There's just no record in the literature of an asymmetrical peritrich lorica with a ragged, fringed aperture like this one. The best starting place for vaginicolid diversity is still the 4th vol. of Kahl's Wimpertiere oder Ciliata (taxonomically outdated, but still very useful). A few years ago, I scanned my copy and uploaded it to the Internet Archive. If you don't already have a copy, you can download it here: https://archive.org/details/1935AlfredK ... nsAndIndex

The Vaginicolidae were revised in Foissner & Berger's comprehensive "Ciliate Atlas" of 1991-95, Band II, pp. 251-283. A. Warren also revised a few vaginicolid genera (such as Platycola and Cothurnia), back in the early 80s; and a number of redescriptions of particular genera have appeared since then. Nothing resembling this tubular structure is depicted in these texts, or in earlier sources, such as Stokes, Kent, or Penard's Etudes sur les Infusoires d'Eau Douce, 1922.

We can also rule out non-peritrich ciliates with hyaline loricae (Metacystis & Vasicola, the tintinnids, Calyptotricha, etc) And ciliates with agglutinated loricae, like Stichotricha and Chaetospira, can be ruled out as well (none has such a transparent

In my own samples, I've met all of these little cuties, and have never seen one that looked anything like this.

In short...it's pretty safe to say this is really not a ciliate lorica.

(Sorry for geeking-out on ciliate taxonomy...it's an obsession! )

[exmarine]

Hi Bruce, thank you for enlightening me about this critter, I like you I use a lot of reference books but thank you for explaining this time I am wrong and coming up with a conclusion. I don't mind being wrong as long as the definitive answer is given, so I now know who to contact if I need an answer on Protozoa or Algae.
Thanks again Bruce.

All the best.