Thank you! Good idea to make a link, Rik. I will make one in the other post.

Carlos, that is interesting but they look very different. I hope we can solve the mystery. :-)

Wim

Great sceneries, ready to be used in a sci fi movie!

Wim

Does not look like a suctorian.

Ferry will know. :-) It could be something like this:

http://www.arcella.nl/granofilosea

Wim

I have uploaded a movie on vimeo. It shows group behavior of bacteria. They are acting almost like an amoeba, engulphing the filamentous Spirogyra alga. think they are feeding on the algae. If you look at the lower right of the image from 00:12 and a bit less clear from 00:30 you can see that the Sp...

Thank you Carlos, you posted when I was writing my last comment!

Yes, that is an interesting page. I can only find filamentous bacteria and I did nto0 see any that look like the bacteria in these images. My sample was not sludge but a much more nutrient poor invironment.

best regards,

Wim

Thank you for the comments, Martin, that may be an idea, but doesn't Beggiotoa make very long filaments? These are not very long. And their mass is brownish. Dave, they do glide and I agree they do look like sulphur bacteria. But I don't know much about bacteria so what I say does not mean much. :-)...

Very nice images, excellent for the holiday season!

Wim

Thank you for these interesting comments. Indeed they do remind of sulphur bacteria. The sample was not anaerobic, it was in a petridish, thin layer of water, plenty of oxygen.

And I think they were breaking down the Spirogyra, as you can see in the second image a part is bend quite severely.

Wim

Protos,

The last image shows the individual cells and I can't think of anything else than bacteria if I see this. But I am realy curious what they are so I hope someone will give me the answer!

Wim

Thanks! It was also the first time I found these. There is always something new to see.

Pau, I did make some time lapses. They were to slow for a normal movie. I will work on them.

Wim

Thank you for your kind words. Protos, you always need some luck. I knew it could happen and I had tried to capture this earlier by putting these organisms together on one slide. But these attempts failed. When you do this deliberately they always seem to be less cooperative. :) But in this case it ...

I did not make that many micrographs this year. Mostly movies and other types of photography. But this may be an interesting one for the forum. When I saw these under the stereomicroscope creeping in a petri-dish I first thought it was some kind of amoeba engulphing Spirogyra strands. Only at a clos...

Thank you, Rogelio and Bernhard, I will tell you the reason for this darkfield DIC. I could have used proper DIC (grey background) or darkfield. One reason is that the DIC set to a dark background works nice for ciliates. It shows the details a bit better than normal darkfield will do. The other rea...

Thank you and congratulations to you too Gerd! Had little time for microscopy but will post soon.

Thank you for the comments. I am sure you have these in your country, Jacek. Marek, I have not arranged them but I have picked a flock when observing teh sample under the stereomicroscoope. The sample is from squeezed sphagnum and was rich in Desmids. It is imporant to let the sample rest for a whil...