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.
The pictures and video were taken with a 16x objective (DIC) on a Zeiss Photomicroscope III with a Canon 1300D camera.
Tim
I thought it was a tardigrade...
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Re: I thought it was a tardigrade...
Beautiful images.
Re: I thought it was a tardigrade...
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.
Cheers,
Kurt Maurer
League City, Texas
email: ngc704(at)gmail(dot)com
https://www.flickr.com/photos/67904872@ ... 912223623/
Kurt Maurer
League City, Texas
email: ngc704(at)gmail(dot)com
https://www.flickr.com/photos/67904872@ ... 912223623/
Re: I thought it was a tardigrade...
Nice. I envy your set-up....
Re: I thought it was a tardigrade...
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
Tim
Re: I thought it was a tardigrade...
That's become a favorite resource for me too.tlansing wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2024 11:51 pmA useful site for lots of pictures of rotifers to help in identifying them (as well as other microlife): https://www.plingfactory.de/pling.html
Cheers,
Kurt Maurer
League City, Texas
email: ngc704(at)gmail(dot)com
https://www.flickr.com/photos/67904872@ ... 912223623/
Kurt Maurer
League City, Texas
email: ngc704(at)gmail(dot)com
https://www.flickr.com/photos/67904872@ ... 912223623/