MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Thanks, Tim. I wrote to Martin, as well. As I mentioned above, Dovgal (2013) synonymizes Trichophrya astaci sensu Matthes et al., 1988 with Dendrosoma radians (but preserves Trichophrya epistylidis ...see: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258725601_Dovgal_IV_Fauna_of_Ukraine_in_40_vol_Vol_36...

Beautiful images, Tim! Thanks for sharing them. How did you arrive at the species? Superficially, it seems nearly identical to Trichophrya epistylidis , and I don't think I'd be able to tell them apart. :) In a discussion of the lovely images posted by Steffen Clauss to the Mikrosopie forum Martin K...

The round guys are stalked peritrich ciliates (the so-called "bell animalcules"), busily filter-feeding on bacteria, purifying the water. They are likely in the Vorticella infusionum complex (cf. Vorticella microstoma turgescens ), which are considered indicators of "isosaprobic" and "polysaprobic" ...

Is there a difference between a lorica and a test? The word "test" is only applied to the shells of amoeboid organisms. It's an awkward term, and the trend in recent years has been toward using the word "shell" instead. In ciliates, any protective structure is usually referred to as a "lorica", tho...

Ah, OK. I guess they might be haploid hyphae (first strands produced by the spores)? I'm just speculating, though.

Is it possible that these are slime mold spores, rather than fungi? Perhaps the strands are capillitium?

So is the structure here in Codonella cratera considered a lorica? Yes, the vaselike structure in which Codonella cratera lives is called a lorica (it's not a peritrich, though, but a tintinnid). It is possible that the "stalk" in the first image is just a bit of adhering debris, in which case it m...

I've enjoyed your posts about the ongoing changes in your water! :) But protists are quickly converting the solid structure into a liquid. Most of that work is not being done by protists but by bacteria and fungi, the so-called "primary decomposers". They secrete enzymes that break down vegetal matt...

convinced myself that a longitudinal division might end at the "mouth" True longitudinal division is pretty rare, in ciliates. Peritrichs do it that way (but that is probably a very derived kind of transverse fission, in which the whole organism is rotated by 90 degrees). is this showing the early ...

It is a peritrich, but not a loricate one (it has no lorica! :D). It is in the order Sessilida, and the poor thing is in some distress. :) Identification of sessilids usually begins with examination of the stalk, but in this case the organism has been uprooted, and we have no way of knowing what its...

Lovely! :) The video shows cells in conjugation...i.e. having sex, not dividing. :) Division in Lacrymaria (as in most ciliates) is transverse, across the middle of the cell. In division, both the mother and daughter cells would be pointing in the same direction, whereas in conjugation they face one...

A dileptid, but damaged, not contracted. The proboscis is missing (which happens a lot, with dileptids). The tail looks slightly damaged as well. Luckily, most dileptids are able to grow a new trunk and tail after an injury of this kind.

Don, protists can certainly sense their environment and process information about the world. Many have light-sensing organelles and pigments (and there's even a family of dinoflagellates that have an eyelike apparatus called an ocelloid, which includes a light-concentrating lens and a structure that...

Nice!! It is a euglenid called Heteronema acus. It has two flagella, a long one and a short one (visible at several points in the video). Lacrymaria has lots of cilia but no flagella at all....though it does have a long necklike extension of the cell, with a "mouth" at the tip.

Nice! They are species of Arcella.

The first one is the spore of an ascomycete fungus. The second one might be fungal as well, though I don't recognize it (not a diatom, in any case).

EricB wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 24, 2024 10:10 pm

also on my wish list is more/better Reference/identification Material...appreciate it...

A recent paper on Ophrydium: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs ... /jeu.12900

Great find!

These are not Stentors. This is a colony of the peritrich ciliate Ophrydium (a variety without zoochlorellae, such as O. crassicaule or O. sessile).

That's beautiful! How big is this creature? It seems to have multiple nuclei. I suspect it could be Pelomyxa.

Another possibility: Distigma proteus.

I believe I did observe two flagella

So, it is probably Heteronema.

Nice! It is a non-photosynthetic euglenid (i.e. heterotrophic) (but that doesn't quite rule out Euglena since that genus now includes a species, previously assigned to Astasia , which has shed its chloroplasts). That kind of movement, which is called "metaboly", is typical of certain species of Hete...

If there are 2 flagella it rules out Petalomonas , which has just one. I think the length of the flagella is indeterminable, because depth of field is limited. I believe this is probably a ploeotid of some kind (e.g. Lentomonas corrugata , Ploeotia , Olkasia ). However, I don't have much experience ...

We see an ovoid heterotrophic euglenoid with a strongly ribbed pellicle, but I can't make out an ingestion apparatus or any flagella. I don't see how we can rule out a strongly ribbed biflagellate, like certain species of Ploeotia and Entosiphon . Is there a particular species of Petalomonas you had...

A lot has changed since 1994, when that (indispensable!) volume was published. :) Shortly before his death, Foissner published a complete nomenclatural revision of the holophryids, dividing Holophrya into four genera. These are distinguished by details of the brosse, which can sometimes be seen in t...

If many ciliates are getting nutrition from just absorbing protein from the medium--the biofilm, why do they have to move around? Nearly all ciliates get their nutrients by ingesting smaller organisms (phagocytosis), though some combine this with other strategies (like borrowing nutrients from endo...

That holophryid is attempting to swallow the long filament. Being single-celled and not equipped with eyes it has no way of knowing that the object it is trying to consume is too big. :D It seems to have broken off a bit of it, but eventually gives up on trying to eat the rest. Holophryids and Ophry...

It's easy to get the swan-like ciliates mixed up. Another one to watch for is Amphileptus procerus , which resembles Litonotus cygnus but has multiple contractile vacuoles and a little fan of toxicysts at the tip of the proboscis. And some dileptids ( Dileptus in the old sense) can look pretty swan-...

Don, the kind of micro-habitat you've been exploring is sometimes called an "infusion": a natural water sample, rich in decaying matter, kept indoors and occasionally replenished with nutrients (the old-fashioned term "infusoria" is derived from this). This kind of environment tends to favour primar...

Stentors have a remarkable ability to survive and regenerate after suffering damage. As long as a piece of the macronucleus is preserved, even a small portion of a damaged cell can recover from trauma. During regeneration, the cell is apt to look pretty strange. :D Also, while Stentors do not have ...