MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

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 ...

Very nice! I especially like the phase images. The long-necked ciliate there is not Lacrymaria but Litonotus cygnus. The mouth is in a slit along the convex side of that blade-like proboscis (whereas Lacrymaria has its cytostome in a ciliated protuberance at the very tip of its "neck").

The most we can say is that it's in the family Vaginicolidae. We don't see the whole lorica, so identification to genus is impossible.

Was it found in moss? The mouth (or what's left of the mouth!) seems to be apical, so P. bursaria is not a candidate. B. viridis is a pretty good guess, but a lot of ciliate species have symbiotic algae, so it is far from certain. Your best hope of identification is to look for intact specimens in t...

This one is Paracondylostoma.

Some very interesting ciliates are found in moss samples!

Whereabouts in the world are you Bruce?

I'm in the hills of western Quebec, Canada, on the Gatineau river (about twenty minutes north of the capital, Ottawa).

Nice use of phase! These are not Paramecium, but the hymenostome Colpidium colpoda (note the single contractile vacuole and the anterior position of the oral opening).

Fabulous video! Most species of " Hemiophrys " have been transferred to Amphileptus , and this includes A. pleurosigma . The genus is still considered valid, but has only a few species left, and I don't think this is one of them. Your ciliate is surely an Amphileptus , but there are about 60 species...

NachoBen wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 29, 2024 2:13 pm

It looks to me like a mutant or deformed Hypotrich, IMHO.

I agree.

They don't see anything to grab at so what's going on here? Are they really grab-and-eat predators or is something else going on? There are two large ciliates here, both hypotrichs. The broad, darkly-coloured ones are Stylonychia . The slender ones are a species of Gonostomum , probably G. strenuum...

Yes, it's a ciliate, but it's not Spirostomum , or any heterotrich. It is in class Litostomatea, subclass Haptoria. but unfortunately it is bent over, so we don't have a very clear view of its overall shape. We see a flattened cell with large posterior vesicle. An oral bulge is visible at several po...

Beautiful! The stalks are much longer here, and clearly have helical spasmonemes, so these are in the family Vorticellidae. They appear to be pseudocolonies, rather than true colonies (i.e. clusters of solitary peritrichs, rather than forming branched "trees", like Carchesium ). So, Vorticella, Pseu...

Zoothamnium is colonial, with branching stalks containing continuous spasmonemes (so, the entire colony contracts together). In contraction, the stalks form "zigzags" rather than spiral coils, as in Vorticellidae. Your peritrichs appear to be solitary, not colonial, and the stalks appear to be spir...

Yes, they're very beautiful! Francisco, I can see why you're thinking of Campanella , because the golden colour is very similar. However, these have short contractile stalks (containing a spasmoneme, visible at 0:20-0:24), so they are definitely not in the genus Campanella , which has branching colo...

There's a lot of literature about oxytrichid cysts. Here are a few papers (the first one is a general overview of ciliate encystment): https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.785502/full https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1550-7408.1973.tb06009.x...

This is a single ciliate in distress from some trauma, such as failure of osmotic regulation and/or coverslip compression. In the early part of the video, a bleb (that is, a bulge in the plasma membrane) has already formed on one side of the cell. Blebbing is sometimes followed by complete separatio...

Nice! It can take a while for freshly excysted ciliates to assume their mature vegetative shape, so identification is difficult. This appears to be a stylonychine (in the family Oxytrichidae), and likely Stylonychia itself. For comparison, a video I recorded a long time ago: https://www.youtube.com/...

We see a stiff, domed cell, with a long AZM, strong caudal cirri and no marginal cirri. It's Euplotes sp., seen from the dorsal aspect. The critter is in some distress: the contractile vacuole is distended, the caudal cirri are rather floppy, and the cell is spinning erratically.

Hmmm...assuming this is not from a marine sample, there aren't too many other heterotrich candidates. Linostomella (previously known as Linostoma) is too small. I suppose Condylostomides could be a contender. It could be I'm misinterpreting the footage, of course. :) Heterotrichs typically have clea...

To me, it looks like a very squashed heterotrich, but I don't see anything to suggest it is Climacostumum . It would not be unusual to find Climacostomum without algal endosymbionts (I see them quite often), but members of that genus always have a prominent vacuole in the posterior, with collecting ...

macnmotion wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 30, 2024 9:12 am

Do you get to name this species?

Only if our paper is accepted for publication.

A beautiful video. I don't think it is F. atra. It is not a very darkly pigmented cell, and lacks a distinctly pigmented anterior spot. I would suspect Frontonia angusta.

Those are gorgeous! They make me want to learn how to colorize images.