Flatworm reproducing

[gekko]

The flatworm, Catenula (thanks to actinophrys for the identification) reproducing by fission (paratomy), head-to-tail. I followed the first pair for about two hours, but there was no visible change during that period. [10x objective; illumination: brightfield then oblique; camera: Olympus E-P1]


Please click on vimeo for full size image.

[75RR]

Great video! Those are fascinating creatures. Very nice oblique.
Its official - I will no longer be surprised by any wee beastie to be found in a drop of water.

[rnabholz]

Great video gekko. I have not encountered this creature before.

Two hours, quite a commitment! Worth the effort.

Rod

[billbillt]

Hi Gekko,

That was a great video... Very interesting...

BillY

[gekko]

75RR, Rod, and BillT, many thanks for the kind words. Rod, I was curious to see how they would separate, since the first pair looked almost ready to do that, but I didn't have what it takes to wait any longer (I'm no Bill Porter ).
One thing that surprised me was that they all seemed to be dividing at the same time, and I wonder whether something in their environment caused that.

[zzffnn]

Very nice and interesting video. Thank you for sharing!

[JimT]

good video and good job adding water during those two hours. You have more patience than I.

[billben74]

Whilst I'm just going to repeat...
Really top notch video gekko. Very professional, well if anyone made a living from making microbe videos, shame though, with ones like this they should.

[vasselle]

Bonjour gekko
Très belle vidéo.
Merci pour le partage
Cordialement seb

[gekko]

zzffnn, JimT, billben74, and seb, many thanks for your very kind words.
JimT, I did the video a while back, and I don't remember if I had to add water; I think I used one of the teflon-coated slides that Rod told us about, and I may have had the compartments essentially sealed by the cover glass. The fact that the worms do not appear to go too much out of the plane of focus suggests that to me, but then again, I may be wrong .

[hb2sbdb]

impressive video!

i've seen these worms, and had tried to video them before, but they've always move too fast, or wouldn't stay on focus plane long enough for a good capture...

These worms have some prominent "ciliate pit" near the head that I found quite interesting!

[gekko]

Many thanks, hb2sbdb, for your comments. Thank for telling me about the ciliate pit: I've noticed it and wondered what it was. I just now looked it up (also called nuchal organ) and found out that it may be involved in light or food detection and/or mating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuchal_organ .Thanks again. One always learns something here.