2 headed or just injured?

[McConkey]

Forgive the awful awful music! This was my first time using Windows movie maker or whatever the kids are calling it these days! First time making a video so i went with all the default settings to make it easier on my self!!

I found this guy while slide surfing yesterday! I dont know nearly enough about them to know whats going on here. Does he have 2 heads? From what i observed they both looked like they were independent of each other and wanting to go in different directions...Is he injured?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySRxhU2hUeM

Thanks for viewing!

[Timemaster1212]

Love the video, and it does indeed look two headed , but may i ask how you recorded it?

[Hobbyst46]

Looking at the creature I just ignored the music - but the music is not THAT bad...

[KurtM]

I agree, very nicely done video. And yes, the critter does appear to ... have a splitting headache ... if you ask me (sorry, had to say it).

PS: Youtube videos are always served with a mute button on the side. Just sayin'.

[Francisco]

Very nice

[charlie g]

Nice flic, Karl, thank you. I am not sure if this is a stage of sexual conjugation...so I suggest looking into longitudinal fission! Most ciliates employ 'transverse binary fission'...yet your excellent video shows 'transverse..splitting along the long axis ' event...does such occur in specific ciliate types?? If I look carefully at this 'couple'...I do sense each has intact, but closely abutting posterior end... So I'm thinking 'sexual conjugation is the behavior you err image captured here!

The music doesn't blunt this video for me...I just turned down the volume control. Charlie Guevara...again, thanks. BTW perhaps a romantic music score would work with this phenomena?

[Bruce Taylor]

It's a monster. Monsterism appears sometimes in natural samples, and can be induced in the laboratory with the help of chemical toxins. One common type (reported in most major ciliate groups) is the "doublet," or "double monster," in which a large part of the organism is duplicated laterally. I suspect that's what we're looking at, here (although the smaller lobe has no oral structures). Other types of deformities can arise from mechanical trauma to the cell, or failure to fully detach following conjugation.

Longitudinal fission is not known among hypotrichous ciliates, so that can certainly be ruled out.

[McConkey]

Thanks for the kind comments everyone! I'm glad i was able to capture something pretty neat and that the music didn't put anyone off! I forgot youtube has a mute option!! I figured out how to make a video without the default music so my next one will be easier to watch!

Timemaster1212 - I have my Canon M3 mounted onto my trinoc head via a phototube. I set the camera to record and started taking videos! If you want more specific details on my setup feel free to ask and i'll send you as much information as i can!

Bruce and Charlie - Thank you for your input! Both replies taught me something new and has given me something to research so i can better educate myself! It's greatly appreciated!

Bruce, what are the give away's to let you know this is a hypotrichous ciliate?

[Pat Thielen]

I agree, very nicely done video. And yes, the critter does appear to ... have a splitting headache ... if you ask me (sorry, had to say it).

PS: Youtube videos are always served with a mute button on the side. Just sayin'.

[Bruce Taylor]

Bruce, what are the give away's to let you know this is a hypotrichous ciliate?

Hypotrichs, in the loose sense of the word, are ciliates that possess cirri, bundles of fused cilia that can often move together as a unit, enabling the organism to crawl along a solid substrate. Cirri tend to be sparsely distributed, often in rows (kineties) along the ventral surface (belly) of the organism. Hypotrichs also have a distinctive "collar and lapel" of membranelles (small sheets of fused cilia) encircling the region of the mouth. This structure is known as the "adoral zone of membranelles", or AZM.

If you look at the "head and neck" of your critter you'll see a conspicuous AZM, and there are rows of cirri on the ventral surface of the cell. There's a patch of long, dangly cirri at the tail end (the so-called transverse cirri). Yup, it's a hypotrich.

Most of the "hypotrichous" ciliates you're likely to encounter belong to the subclass Hypotrichia. The common exceptions are the euplotids, such as Euplotes and Aspidisca, nimble, rigid-bodied crawlers that look somewhat similar, but have a subclass of their own: Euplotia. (Confusingly, the classification system of Denis Lynn calls the latter group Hypotrichia, and the former Stichotrichia. Well, that's taxonomy, for you! ).

Here's a picture I drew for Wikimedia commons a few months ago, showing parts of a typical hypotrich (in this case, the ciliate Stylonychia):

[McConkey]

Bruce - Thank you for the very detail reply! It will take me a few readings to fully understand everything but for the most part i followed what you were saying!! The diagram is incredibly helpful! I really appreciate you going into detail about it! Thank you

I don't suppose you have diagrams like that for every other single little out there do you???

[Bruce Taylor]

I don't suppose you have diagrams like that for every other single little out there do you???

Just ciliates. I was dabbling with vector graphics, and decided to practice on my favorite organisms.

To add to the above, not everything that has an AZM is a hypotrich. For instance, Blepharisma has membranelles around its mouth, but has no cirri on its body (just simple cilia). It is not a hypotrich, but a heterotrich, like Stentor and Spirostomum (a very distant group, so the AZM seems to have evolved independently).

[McConkey]

Another incredible reference image! Thanks Bruce for the continued education!

[vasselle]

Bonjour
Très belle vidéo

[75RR]

Excellent and very helpful illustrations - hope this is the start of an educational pamphlet on ciliates.