What did I witness?

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Rossf
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Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:39 am
Location: Victoria Australia

What did I witness?

#1 Post by Rossf » Sun Jun 06, 2021 1:07 am

Sorry I don’t have video to show-was just doing a quick check on my compost tea brew and I witnessed something bizarre -imagine two ciliates-one orange 🍊 sized and the other cigarette sized-the smaller one latches on the the larger one and it’s mouth just gets bigger and bigger then suddenly most of the larger ciliate’s cytoplasm bursts into the smaller ciliate filling it like a balloon -at this point I’m starting to wonder which ciliate is in more distress-the larger ciliate’s skin disintegrated and round clumps came out-the previously smaller (now much bigger) ciliate mopped up every last morsel-by the time it was over the small ciliate now looked exactly like the larger one, just a bit larger!-and then I began to wonder..what did I just see and more importantly…who actually ate who? Did the small ciliate eat the big one anaconda style or did the bigger one in defence do a “cytoplasm invasion” of the smaller one, assimilating it? Reminded me of that movie “The Thing” where after attacking something it impersonates it ready for the next victim. Has anyone ever seen something similar? Regards ross

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micro
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Re: What did I witness?

#2 Post by micro » Sun Jun 06, 2021 9:20 am

A list of microbes that eat others are dileptid, stentor, amoeba, Loxophyllum, flatworm?. Not sure what ciliates eat other live ciliates besides maybe vorticella/peritrichs. I guess most microbes will eat each other as long as they have already fallen apart.

Bruce Taylor
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Re: What did I witness?

#3 Post by Bruce Taylor » Sun Jun 06, 2021 11:59 am

It sounds like predation. The other notion (assimilation :D) is creative, but improbable. If the little guy was a ciliate, it might have been something in the class Litostomatea, members of which have toxicysts that they use to kill or immobilize their prey before consuming it. Attack by a litostome can cause rupture of membranes, and many can open their mouths very wide to take in food. Flagellate peranemids (phagotrophic euglenoids) can also drill into large prey, using their stiff ingestion organs to saw through the membranes.

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Rossf
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Location: Victoria Australia

Re: What did I witness?

#4 Post by Rossf » Mon Jun 07, 2021 11:37 am

Thanks for the insight Bruce Taylor-Litostomatea sound likely but I’m not sure if it’s shape was more in line with some of the Loxophyllum-are they in the same group somewhere? I seem to remember the head sort of curled over a bit and quite a small mouth (until it became a big mouth!)-I really need to start learning some taxonomy of microbes-so if a Litostomatea latches on an eats a large ciliate will it blow up to a round shape like I witnessed? Can you recommend a online resource for learning basic taxonomy-every time I look for something it’s like looking into the abyss it’s so overwhelming!
Regards ross
P.S you’re a fantastic asset to this forum. As are a lot of people.

Bruce Taylor
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Re: What did I witness?

#5 Post by Bruce Taylor » Mon Jun 07, 2021 5:25 pm

Yes, Loxophyllum is a litostomatean. Of course, there are many others in the class (some of them quite similar in appearance to Loxophyllum).

A great free resource for ciliate taxonomy is the personal website of the late Wilhelm Foissner, whose 750 publications are available here: http://www.wfoissner.at/publications.htm

And thanks for the kind comments. :)

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