Spathidium
Spathidium
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/
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
Re: Spathidium
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.
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)
Olympus E-P2 (Micro Four Thirds Camera)
Re: Spathidium
Thanks 75RR
No I'm not using LED bulbs. I'm using the standard 6v 10w halogen bulb it was built with.
No I'm not using LED bulbs. I'm using the standard 6v 10w halogen bulb it was built with.
Leitz SM-Lux
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- Posts: 1002
- Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 11:34 am
Re: Spathidium
Well, that's fairly cool...bizarre, even. 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.
The little ball-shaped guy in the last video looks damaged, too. Hey, maybe it's the anterior portion of the first one.
Re: Spathidium
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.
Leitz SM-Lux
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- Posts: 1002
- Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 11:34 am
Re: Spathidium
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! )
Link to Supraspathidium, for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woPBgvBqks0
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! )
Link to Supraspathidium, for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woPBgvBqks0