MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

I spent some time chasing these awesome microbes. They glide through the water with such smooth and beautiful movements, it really is fascinating to see how they live.

Does anyone know the names of these microbes? The second one in particular is truly spectacular.

Bravo, antartica, wonderful microscopy encounters, thanks for posting this thread.

The second organism is a species of large ciliate in Genus: Blepharisma...please 'google' images of ciliate: Blepharisma..you will often get a species ID.

The first organism would benefit from higher magnification image captures..very elegant organism..I have no idea what this organism is.

Please tell us where this water sample was collected from, please share what microscope set-up you used for this microscopy adventure. again, thanks. charlie g/ finger lakes/US

A wonderful collection of critters! This was a brackish or marine sample, presumably? These are mostly ciliates found in salt water. The first is a karyorelictean ciliate with a slightly beaklike (rostral) anterior. At first I thought it was a species of Geleia, but I now think it is actually Kentrophoros. The second is not Blepharisma, but a marine relative, Anigsteinia clarissima. The third is in the family Trachelocercidae (Trachelocerca, Tracheloraphis, Kovalevaia etc.) Fourth is in Litonotidae (Litonotus, Protolitonotus, etc.). There's been a lot of recent work on marine ciliates from this group, and identification to genus is less easy than it used to be. Next one is hard to see clearly...I would suspect a species of Remanella. Then, another trachelocercid, followed by a nasty, thrashing nematode. Finally, a big old annelid I think (I don't know much about metazoa!)

Thanks for kind words. They are truly mesmerizing to watch. And thanks also for the species identification. Now I know what I was looking at

And I’m just using a regular Olympus bh2. I try to play with the lightning to get the best results.