I thought it was a tardigrade...

[tlansing]

I made a short video of what I originally thought was a tardigrade burrowing around in debris, as shown in the video below.


Closer examination revealed that it was not a tardigrade at all but the rotifer Taphrocampa. I had never seen one of these before. Here are additional pictures of three individual Taphrocampa. The dark spot in the "head" of the rotifer is the retrocerebral organ and the eyespot. The first picture shows a side view of Taphrocama feeding on the surface of a strand of algae and the other two pictures show dorsoventral views.

Taphrocampa1.JPG (68.69 KiB) Viewed 324 times

Taphrocampa2.JPG (47.5 KiB) Viewed 324 times

Taphrocampa3.JPG (54.08 KiB) Viewed 324 times

The pictures and video were taken with a 16x objective (DIC) on a Zeiss Photomicroscope III with a Canon 1300D camera.

Tim

[DonSchaeffer]

Beautiful images.

[KurtM]

How very interesting! Like you, I've never heard of or seen this one before and I can only imagine your surprise and delight to discover it was something other than a 'mere' tardigrade. Congrats on a very nice job of tracking it down and IDing it, and of imaging it so well too. Thanks for posting.

[EricB]

Nice. I envy your set-up....

[tlansing]

Hi Don, Kurt and Eric: thanks very much for your kind comments and I'm glad you like the pictures and video. A useful site for lots of pictures of rotifers to help in identifying them (as well as other microlife): https://www.plingfactory.de/pling.html

Tim

[KurtM]

A useful site for lots of pictures of rotifers to help in identifying them (as well as other microlife): https://www.plingfactory.de/pling.html

That's become a favorite resource for me too.