Found a Tardi bear

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Aenima
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Found a Tardi bear

#1 Post by Aenima » Wed Aug 23, 2017 6:07 am

Hi guys,

One of my aims when i got my microscope was to find and observe a tardigrade. After finding the egg i was encouraged to keep searching. Well, it came as no surprise that they are, in fact, pretty much everywhere :o :P

In the end i only had to step two paces out my front door - and appear to have struck tiny gold. :D


The first pictures i took were not great, i just wanted to record the event rather than try photography for aesthetic purposes...

I plan on working to improve that aspect but for now i'm happy to have found my first tardigrade. :)
tardi4.jpg
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tardsweb.jpg
tardsweb.jpg (404.46 KiB) Viewed 9297 times
tardi2.jpg
tardi2.jpg (57.14 KiB) Viewed 9297 times

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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#2 Post by 75RR » Wed Aug 23, 2017 6:30 am

Good catch! They are funny little things - you will probably find that they are easier to video than photograph.
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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#3 Post by hkv » Wed Aug 23, 2017 7:12 am

Great find! I have never seen one.
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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#4 Post by Aenima » Wed Aug 23, 2017 7:34 am

THNX - yeah, i found them hard to take still images of due to the constant movement and shallow DoF (coupled with a deep water sample).
Video did seem better when i tried it, but i've not had chance to edit or convert the SER file yet. (was recorded with my astro cmos camera in RAW format).

Hkv - thanks :) - what i did to find the tardigrade was to pull some moss off the ground into a container, pour some bottled water on it, wait an hour or three and used a pipette to take a drop from the mossy areas of the container, dropping it into a concave slide :) a few drops later and i had one.

Chuffed. :) :)


Did i tell you folks i managed to find a BH2? A fortunate ebay find. Still looking for parts to complete it, but it's getting there - a piece at a time. :)
Last edited by Aenima on Wed Aug 23, 2017 8:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#5 Post by mrsonchus » Wed Aug 23, 2017 7:52 am

Haha! A very good set of first pictures to me old chap. The first image even has tiny hooks in focus. I too find these little fellows almost every time I rinse a moss sample - they seem to hang-out in the mossy depths! :D

Great start, keep up the good work my friend.

John B :)
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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#6 Post by Aenima » Wed Aug 23, 2017 8:17 am

Thank you John B :)

I noticed they like to hang out in the moss - even squished between glass they cling to bits of plant material, or wander around in search of some. :)

I actually think i found two different types - i think i found two different types of egg so its possible... one was a giant in comparison to the other two i saw, and was a deep red colour with thin spikey 'antennae' on its back.

Not sure what i'm seeing though to be honest - especially as i've only ever seen those 3 :P (see pics of the red one)
red-tardi.jpg
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_MG_9905red-tardi-hairs.jpg
_MG_9905red-tardi-hairs.jpg (310.06 KiB) Viewed 9287 times
visible 'hairs'

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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#7 Post by mrsonchus » Wed Aug 23, 2017 8:26 am

Superb - a mystery is unfolding! Is it possible that the red is a symbiont - an alga perhaps? Keep investigating - I for one would enjoy more details of this little beauty!

Good stuff! :D :D
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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#8 Post by Aenima » Wed Aug 23, 2017 9:00 am

When i looked for the types, i found an image that seems to describe the two i saw, although i've no idea about the geography or whether they are likely to be found together...

The top two, in the image look like the ones in my water sample.



164cd27b11c888f5f25da363588c32d4--tardigrade-science-illustration.jpg
164cd27b11c888f5f25da363588c32d4--tardigrade-science-illustration.jpg (495.01 KiB) Viewed 9282 times

This also describes the two different appearances
types_of_tardigrades_two.jpg
types_of_tardigrades_two.jpg (127.77 KiB) Viewed 9282 times

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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#9 Post by Aenima » Wed Aug 23, 2017 9:28 am

But otherwise i have no idea hehe :P


I knew there were a huge amount of different species, but beyond that i am still learning about them - i know that some folks think they're indestructible, but they only really survive most of the harshness when they're dried up - otherwise they can easily get damaged or killed by just trying to pick one up :P i found that out the hard way :oops: :cry:

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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#10 Post by mrsonchus » Wed Aug 23, 2017 2:54 pm

Excellent - those cirri do look to be present, and the 'bulbous' one maybe? A fascinating peek. Thanks for the fine post - keep up the enquiry - great to follow.

John B :)
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Re: Encuentran un oso de Tardi

#11 Post by Francisco » Wed Aug 23, 2017 3:00 pm

Interesting information. Thanks for sharing

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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#12 Post by MichaelBrock » Thu Aug 24, 2017 1:28 am

Nice! Finding a tardigrade is one of my microscopy goals as well!

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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#13 Post by Aenima » Thu Aug 24, 2017 4:25 am

They are certainly fascinating little creatures! :)


The biggest problem i had was separating one from the water sample to put on a slide. I tried to use a cheapo low power stereo microscope to search for them, but when i spotted one i couldn't do anything about it. Trying to use a pipette while viewing was clumsy and more often than not it washed them away as soon as i tried to put the pipette in the water.
In the end i abandoned the stereo scope and just got about 5 concave slides set out on the desk, and used the pipette to get a drop from the mossy areas of water in the 'petri dish' and placed a drop on each slide - then quickly scan each slide at about 40x until i found one.

A more experienced person might find the stereo scope approach works fine, but i'm just too clumsy with a pipette for that. :P


Here's an image of a tardigrade egg(s) - in case you happen across one. It's good to know they're 'in the neighborhood' as it were. :)

tardi-egg.jpg
tardi-egg.jpg (303.01 KiB) Viewed 9253 times

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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#14 Post by kit1980 » Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:40 pm

Cool!
Now I want to find one also.
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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#15 Post by Aenima » Fri Aug 25, 2017 9:01 am

Found what might be a tentative ID for the two types of tardigrade in the photos i took. Although, admittedly i have no idea whether it's even close - i've seen 3 or 4 in my short time with a microscope, and there are supposedly thousands of species - what the differences are and where i can find pictures of them i don't know.


The info i found was from this site : http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/ind ... bearp.html



(BTW -I realised earlier that i was saving images from peoples websites via google, and could possibly be sharing someones work without crediting or permission, so i'll stick to links or at least provide a link to accompany any images i use. :) )


According to the link, the images resembling the two in my post, are these.

The Red one seems to be
blumi.jpg
blumi.jpg (32.57 KiB) Viewed 9227 times
Echiniscus blumi


https://g.co/kgs/kd1C7K

The White one, without 'hairs'
evelinae.jpg
evelinae.jpg (15.12 KiB) Viewed 9227 times
Hypsibius evelinae


It's still not entirely clear to me whether the IDs are right, but it's reassuring to see such a close match physically and find images from the internet with some info to follow up on. :)

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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#16 Post by mrsonchus » Fri Aug 25, 2017 9:32 am

Excellent work! You've discovered the sheer pleasure of investigating the finds! Great fun and fascinating - thanks for sharing these with us. You know, I'm a confirmed leaf-botherer but I'm tempted to go and squeeze some of the moss in my garden for these little fellows....

Keep it up! :D :D :)

John B.
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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#17 Post by Aenima » Thu Sep 07, 2017 6:04 pm

You guys have created a monster haha :D
i have to admit when i first read someones post where they reported spending a few hours observing a drop of water, it seemed pretty extreme - i mean, i had initially planned to 'check out' the pond life, before then moving on to other things to view....

But i've had a microscope for several weeks now and STILL not moved past the water drop! I've spent the whole time unable to peel my eyes away from that first sample of moss and rainwater. :ugeek: :!: :shock:

All thoughts of photography were quickly replaced with 'Ooohs' and 'Aahhs' seeing a new organism, and topping up the water drop in order to keep viewing, and learning to make a wet mount with three coverslips (thank you Mr Kim), amazement at the speed of a Vorticella when i tapped the stage to make it contract (thats a trick i still haven't got tired of!), and the weird movement of ameobas, and the spinning parts of rotifers, watching random protozoa split into two, and of course hunting tardigrades, and too many other highlights to list.

There is so much to see isn't there?. Really got into observing these little water critters. Can't wait to get a different sample to the moss/rainwater i have used so far, perhaps a salt-water sample as i'm close to the seafront.
Last edited by Aenima on Thu Oct 05, 2017 4:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#18 Post by mrsonchus » Thu Sep 07, 2017 6:07 pm

Aenima wrote:You guys have created a monster haha :D
i have to admit when i first read someones post where they reported spending a few hours observing a drop of water, it seemed pretty extreme - i mean, i had initially planned to 'check out' the pond life, before then moving on to other things to view....

But i've had a microscope for several weeks now and STILL not moved past the water drop! I've spent the *whole time* unable to peel my eyes away from that first sample of moss and rainwater. :ugeek: :!: :shock:

All thoughts of photography were quickly replaced with 'Ooohs' and 'Aahhs' seeing a new organism, and topping up the water drop in order to keep viewing, and learning to make a wet mount with three coverslips (thank you Mr Kim), amazement at the speed of a Vorticella when i tapped the stage (thats a trick i still haven't got tired of!), and the weird movement of ameobas, and the spinning parts of rotifers, watching random protozoa split into two, and of course hunting tardigrades, and too many other highlights to list.

There is so much to see isn't there?. Really got into observing these little water critters. Can't wait to get a different sample to the moss/rainwater i have used so far, perhaps a salt-water sample as i'm close to the seafront.
Haha! well done my friend - you're well on your way now! :D :D :)
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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#19 Post by Aenima » Thu Nov 23, 2017 2:16 am

_MG_0573-red-tardi.jpg
_MG_0573-red-tardi.jpg (330.51 KiB) Viewed 8688 times


Another red tardigrade appeared a while back, and i don't know whether it was alive or not, but it wasn't moving. It does look exactly like the first one though. Thought i'd post it here as a kind of update. :)

Had a slow period of microscope use due to moving to an olympus - i was going to sell the Leitz but have grown to like it too much - very pleasing to observe with and great optics as far as i can tell. So it's staying with me. :)

Have some questions about the olympus, but this might be better posted elsewhere.

Will work out how to convert my phone video files as i took quite a few vids of the tardigrades that show how cute they are when trying to move around. :)

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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#20 Post by charlie g » Fri Nov 24, 2017 6:58 pm

Congrats, Aenima, on your successful bear-hunt. Great image captures too! In my encounters with these 'moss piglets/ water bears'...they quite easily tolerate the water depth under a simple rectangular #1, or #1.5 cover slip...depression slides/ well slides provides just too much water colum depth for observing our cherubic water bears. No need for the task of: cover slip shims under a wetmount coverslip slide prep with water bears..just feed your slide fluids as water evaporates with time.

To round up a collection of water bears/ water bear eggs for coverslip observations...have a slide with an elongated water sample droplet on it to screen for your target organisms. By the location (10X, 20X objectives work for screening) of the bears...then with objective turned out of way..gentle slup only that illuminated area of your scan-slide with a pastuer pipet dropper. This sample transferred to another slide..the sample viewed to verify you caught your bear...then back to original elongated water drop slide to round up further bears! When you have the specimens you want to observe...drop your coverslip and use this specimen slide. Of course this collection of target organisms to the slide eventually to be observed..works for all our protists, all our rotifers, nematodes, water fleas, flatworms, water bears, etc. .

Thank you for your successful bear hunt shareing, Aenima. Charlie Guevara..BTW..I still have never encountered Volvox colonial flagellates..in my years of hunting with my microscopes..sigh.

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Re: Found a Tardi bear

#21 Post by Aenima » Sat Nov 25, 2017 11:51 pm

charlie g wrote:
To round up a collection of water bears/ water bear eggs for coverslip observations...have a slide with an elongated water sample droplet on it to screen for your target organisms. By the location (10X, 20X objectives work for screening) of the bears...then with objective turned out of way..gentle slup only that illuminated area of your scan-slide with a pastuer pipet dropper. This sample transferred to another slide..the sample viewed to verify you caught your bear...then back to original elongated water drop slide to round up further bears! When you have the specimens you want to observe...drop your coverslip and use this specimen slide. Of course this collection of target organisms to the slide eventually to be observed..works for all our protists, all our rotifers, nematodes, water fleas, flatworms, water bears, etc. .

Thank you for your successful bear hunt shareing, Aenima. Charlie Guevara..BTW..I still have never encountered Volvox colonial flagellates..in my years of hunting with my microscopes..sigh.
I had never considered a second slide to transfer small samples from the original - this will give me a more 'concentrated' population to observe and photograph. Very good suggestion Charlie thank you.
I will give that a try.

i'm finding some trouble with my illumination techniques, and understanding, and am currently in the market for a different condenser or other form of lighting for my BHTU. Just need to learn more about it so I can put it to good use.

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