Epistylis undergoing binary fission
Epistylis undergiong binary fission
Re: Epistylis undergiong binary fission
Another great moment captured!
I'm intrigued by your ability to capture very interesting scenes. Could you describe your observing routine?
I'm intrigued by your ability to capture very interesting scenes. Could you describe your observing routine?
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Re: Epistylis undergiong binary fission
Thanks Javier. I don't think I'm doing anything special, but I think I've had some good luck witnessing interesting scenes.
My routine: I've been trying to collect new samples every weekend. That keeps things fresh. When I kept longer samples they tended to end up with tons of just a few organisms. I build slides with large cover glasses so there is more opportunity per slide. I grab some debris or algae with tweezers and tap it onto the slide, which leaves behind small pieces of debris and organisms. If necessary I add a few drops of water as well but not much as I want a very thin slide. I use a 10x objective, start at one corner, then move through the slide quickly in a pattern for example straight down, then right one FOV width, straight up, etc. I look for movement, stopping briefly when I see something. If I teresting I pause to think, if not I move on.
When "thinking" I'm just looking to see what it's doing, what other organisms there are nearby, is it something I haven't seen before. If interesting I follow it, but if it's hard to follow I eventually give up and go back to my search. If interesting and not moving too much, I flip to my 40x and if it looks interesting I switch to my 40x oil. I'm careful about that final move because once I do that, there's no going back to 10x so my search of the remainder of the slide will be a lot slower. Then. I'm patient. I stick with an organism, watching it's behavior. In the case of the Epistylis being eaten, I just had a feeling with so many Amphileptus around the second Epistylis would become a target, so I waited 5 minutes watching and sure enough it was attacked.
If my quick scan of a slide doesn't find anything interesting within a few minutes I make a new slide. I can usually tell pretty quickly what kinds of things are on a slide.
Re: Epistylis undergiong binary fission
Thank you for the detailed description!