MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

What are these two up to?

40x objective, Afocal 10x Eyepiece, Nexus 6P.

Those look like colonial Diatoms (as in a Colony), they are usually in longer sections/bands.

You might be on to something, I did not notice the gap between them at first. This is maybe 4 diatoms? I have seen them in another configuration as well in the same water samples; here is one from a slide yesterday.

Second image is a filamentous alga. (thread like)

By the way, your images would be a bit sharper if you magnified them a little less.
1024 pixels is the max permitted size on the longest border, I find 850 pixels wide is a convenient size,
though the final size does depend on the original magnification and whether the final image has been cropped.

Hi glennbech,

Here is a snap shot I took recently when checking out a batch of diatoms I had gathered. The long ribbon is nice example of colonial diatoms.

I believe there are at least two other varieties in the shot as well

75RR wrote:Second image is a filamentous alga. (thread like)

By the way, your images would be a bit sharper if you magnified them a little less.
1024 pixels is the max permitted size on the longest border, I find 850 pixels wide is a convenient size,
though the final size does depend on the original magnification and whether the final image has been cropped.

Thanks for the heads up on image size.

The couple in my original post also come as singles on my slides. In fact, most of them are. Maybe they form colonies when they come in contact with others?

I have often wondered what the deal is with diatom pairs such as you show in your first image. The ribbons of true colonial types that Rod shows - Fragillaria in his case, I believe - usually contain more than just the two. I see your sort of paired individuals quite a lot, doubt they're colonial per se, and notice they're usually pennate forms, which is to say I don't see this behavior across the board, if you will.

What this forum needs is a genuine diatom guru...

Some good images and an interesting discussion.