Copepod (harpacticoida?) dying

[janvangastel]

I made a video of a copepod I found on a glass sheet above the water of my fish tank. I wonder what the red stuff in his body is, that is spilled at the end of the video. I think it is blood. But I am not sure, because there are large and small sperical parts in it (I think blood cells are all the same size). Filmed with my Orthoplan, with 10, 25, 40 and 63 objective and 12.5 mm FL eyepieces: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfgdZ3uhWM8&t=16s[/youtube]

Jan

[Peter]

Hi Jan,
The orange spheres look like oil droplets to me.
Peter.

[janvangastel]

Thanks. Do you know whether these drops are they in the blood stream, or does everything mix because of the fact the creature is crushed?
edit: I think I already found out. Because they are small, they have no heart and no circulation system, so I think everything 'floats' around inside the body.

[75RR]

looks like it was crushed by the cover slip - easy to do

I would assume they are Lipids (if Triglycerides, they would be for energy storage)

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... plications

[janvangastel]

Thanks for the link. Interesting article.