Spathidium

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D0c
Posts: 267
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Location: England

Spathidium

#1 Post by D0c » Thu Mar 04, 2021 1:01 pm

Once again I was searching in my specimen jar and I found what I believe is a Spathidium. But once I started reading about them, I read that Spathidium normally have one CV in the posterior but mine seems to not have this. Then I looked at Bruce Taylor's website "It came from the pond" and found an article on a protist called Supraspathidium which has many CV's similar to what I have so is it one of them.

100X - https://www.flickr.com/photos/154534235 ... ateposted/
200X - https://www.flickr.com/photos/154534235 ... ateposted/
400X - https://www.flickr.com/photos/154534235 ... ateposted/
200X - https://www.flickr.com/photos/154534235 ... ateposted/

There was also this specimen, this I think is the same critter.

200X - https://www.flickr.com/photos/154534235 ... ateposted/
400X - https://www.flickr.com/photos/154534235 ... ateposted/
Leitz SM-Lux

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75RR
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Re: Spathidium

#2 Post by 75RR » Thu Mar 04, 2021 4:17 pm

Nice catch!

Question on your illumination re flickering - are you using a LED with a PWM (pulse-width modulation) controller?

If so, you will find that a Constant Current Driver should sort that out.
Zeiss Standard WL (somewhat fashion challenged) & Wild M8
Olympus E-P2 (Micro Four Thirds Camera)

D0c
Posts: 267
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2020 9:13 pm
Location: England

Re: Spathidium

#3 Post by D0c » Thu Mar 04, 2021 5:39 pm

Thanks 75RR

No I'm not using LED bulbs. I'm using the standard 6v 10w halogen bulb it was built with.
Leitz SM-Lux

Bruce Taylor
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Re: Spathidium

#4 Post by Bruce Taylor » Thu Mar 04, 2021 7:57 pm

Well, that's fairly cool...bizarre, even. :D It's not Spathidium, or any spathidiid (it lacks the slit-shaped mouth and oral bulge of that group, and the body just looks wrong). It is clearly a heterotrich of some sort, but what kind? At first look, it seems somewhat like Condylostentor, but that's a marine genus. It could be a long, floppy Condylostoma, though the buccal cavity isn't quite right (and I don't see adoral membanelles). The posterior vesicle and collecting canal are very reminiscent of Spirostomum, but the anterior seems to wide, and the whole cell is somewhat trumpet-shaped. Which brings us to...a damaged or malformed Stentor,. Some Stentors have collecting canals and posterior vesicles, like this guy, and the creature we see here does look distinctly unhealthy. It's a little hard to explain what's going on a the anterior, but I think this could well be a partially-regenerated peristome, following an accident of some sort. So, that would be my first guess. My second guess would be a malformed Condylostoma, or maybe a mutant Spirostomum. Of course, if you find more of these with the same traits, then it all gets a lot more interesting!

The little ball-shaped guy in the last video looks damaged, too. Hey, maybe it's the anterior portion of the first one. :D

D0c
Posts: 267
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2020 9:13 pm
Location: England

Re: Spathidium

#5 Post by D0c » Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:11 pm

It is a strange one indeed, I thought I could see a slit shaped mouth in the 100X video and when I compared it to your video it looked very similar. The critter in the 400X video is a completely different one to the 100X video. I watched it uncontract itself from a ball into another one like the 100X critter, what I'm trying to say is there was two off them but unfortunately I didn't get a video off them both together.
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Bruce Taylor
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Re: Spathidium

#6 Post by Bruce Taylor » Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:43 pm

If you look closely at the Supraspathidium in that old video you can see that the anterior of the cell is neatly "squared off", not ragged, and at there is a sort of rim around the slit mouth (it looks like blubbery lips). Just behind that, supporting the mouth-slit, there is a fan of "nematodesmata" (microtubular rods) very visible at around 0:35 when the magnification is increased. Your ciliate lacks nematodesmata (which you would expect to see on a spathidiid.) (Note, too, that there is a lateral collecting canal on your critter widening into a posterior vesicle, visible at 1:23 in the 100X video and from the start of the 200X one...so, the structures you're reading as CVs are likely food vacuoles and/or macronuclear nodules).

Your ciliate is very uneven at the anterior, and there is a sort of sac-like opening there. The body looks (to my eye) like that of a heterotrich. However, we don't see anything like adoral membranelles at the anterior. A heterotrich without membranelles is, by definition, a damaged heterotrich. ;) So, I do think that's probably what we're dealing with, here. (And, needless to say, I could be wrong! :D)

Link to Supraspathidium, for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woPBgvBqks0

D0c
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Location: England

Re: Spathidium

#7 Post by D0c » Thu Mar 04, 2021 9:15 pm

Thanks Bruce I'll place it in the class Heterotrichea
Leitz SM-Lux

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