Found in the RSW lake

[Lilly Begonia]

While working yesterday and on the road I took a detour back to RSW past a lake I wanted a sample from and with one of the dozen 4 oz sample jars I'd gotten I took one. Well after a 23 hour shift I got up very late this morning and prepared a slide or two, although feeling pretty crispy around the edges at the time, and started seeing what's in that lake on Chamberlain Rd. I had to get this during the day because I know better than go near water here at night. Anyway the frst things to show up were these:

I'm pretty sure this is my second Stentor. At the mouth end in the live image I could see the cilia going and bacteria being swirled in circles until they were pulled inside.



Then there was this little guy, the second one I've seen, and I still don't know what it is, a copepod or a rotifer. It changed it's shape and began swimming around feeding very much like a rotifer, having folded up it's tails. So I'm thinking it's a rotifer of some kind. Not being yet familiar enough with rotifera or copepada I cannot readily distinguish between them in some instances.



This one I'm pretty sure is a copepod:



Then I saw this penate diatom unlike any I'd seen before, and it's rather pretty:



And this water flea, I know, not a biggie, but the fist I've seen on my own scope:



That's all I have the energy to post today, I'm real burnt out. I'm up for another very long shift tomorrow, taking sample jars with me, and since my job takes me all over SW Florida I'm sure I'll find other ponds to sample while daylight lasts.

[vasselle]

Bonjour
Jolie observation

[Pat Thielen]

More great photos! I hope I can find a stentor one of these days; they are one of my favorites. I think what we're looking at is indeed a rotifer, but someone else will have to come up with the species. The first copepod I believe is a nauplius, or a baby (larva) copepod -- Perhaps a cyclops. They turn up quite frequently in pond samples. Other people will be able to get closer at IDing these guys than me; it's fun to practice though.

I like how you carry sample bottles with you; that is something I've thought about doing but haven't quite gotten there yet. Do you have your bottles in a special bag or case? Or do you just keep them individually in your car? One of the things I'd like to come up with is a field kit that I could keep in my car and have it on hand for collecting. It may even be something you could buy somewhere.

Anyway, thanks for the posts!

[75RR]

Plenty of action in your sample.
Couple of IDs
Image 2 = Rotifer (possibly Lacane sp.) http://cfb.unh.edu/cfbkey/html/Organism ... epida.html
Image 3 = Nauplius (young copepoda)

[Charles]

The diatom is a Surirella

[Lilly Begonia]

I like how you carry sample bottles with you; that is something I've thought about doing but haven't quite gotten there yet. Do you have your bottles in a special bag or case? Or do you just keep them individually in your car? One of the things I'd like to come up with is a field kit that I could keep in my car and have it on hand for collecting. It may even be something you could buy somewhere.

Anyway, thanks for the posts!

Hey Pat,

Well I drive 18-22+ hour shifts, so I have to carry everything I need to live in the car with me for the shift, food, drinks, paperwork, entertainment and equipment. No problem to include some sample jars in my bag. These are the ones I bought:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071R ... UTF8&psc=1

They come with label stickers which is nice. There are several other ponds I've been wanting to sample, some in gated communities which I have ready access to, others around RSW.

Some are not easy to get to because of the way SW Florida is set up with no place to park while you collect your sample. It's designed to keep people from stopping anywhere but where they live, but just occasionally I'll find easy access to a nice pond. Of course one must do the usual safety checks. Ponds and lakes around RSW are posted no trespassing by the Port Authority, for reasons of liability, because they know what lives in those ponds and lakes, so you need to watch it when collecting samples.

One I found in Colonial Country Club Ft. Meyers yielded some very nice aquatic fauna, and I want to get back there for more samples. It's a matter of where I'm assigned to be on a given day's business outings. I'm hoping to find more vorticella, they are such fun to watch!

I think you may be right about the copepod being a cyclops, it has that single big red thing on it's head, perhaps an eye spot.

[Lilly Begonia]

The diatom is a Surirella

Thank you Charles! I'll label it so in my collection!

[Lilly Begonia]

Plenty of action in your sample.
Couple of IDs
Image 2 = Rotifer (possibly Lacane sp.) http://cfb.unh.edu/cfbkey/html/Organism ... epida.html
Image 3 = Nauplius (young copepoda)

Ah! Thank you sir! I was pretty sure it was a rotifer after it started moving around, morphing, and feeding like one. I got another shot of one previously from another pond:

[Jonnyvine]

Nice findings