Simocephalus Vetulus
Posted: Thu May 25, 2017 8:13 am
I found a rather big Simocephalus Vetulus in a recently collected water sample. She turned out to have small females under her carapace. In females, there is a large space between the back and the dorsal side of the carapace that functions as a brood pouch. I can spot at least 10 small females. Simocephalus Vetulus reproduces parthenogenetically most of the year (producing females).
Polarized light with 4X objective, size of the animal is just below 3 mm:
Fluorescent light with 4X objective:
Close-up with the 10X objective. Fluorescent light. Showing the small females (which were moving around)
The last image is a smaller female, just below 1 mm. In "poor man's" darkfield. I did not use a proper darkfield stop because I did not have one mounted in the condenser turret, but I instead set the condenser between two DIC positions having the metal frames of the DIC prisms act as a darkfield stop. Not very sophisticated, but I was somewhat surprised how well it worked.
Polarized light with 4X objective, size of the animal is just below 3 mm:
Fluorescent light with 4X objective:
Close-up with the 10X objective. Fluorescent light. Showing the small females (which were moving around)
The last image is a smaller female, just below 1 mm. In "poor man's" darkfield. I did not use a proper darkfield stop because I did not have one mounted in the condenser turret, but I instead set the condenser between two DIC positions having the metal frames of the DIC prisms act as a darkfield stop. Not very sophisticated, but I was somewhat surprised how well it worked.