Dividing Arcella, Frontonia, Paramecium pellicle, Holospora

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau

Psi Wavefunction
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2009 1:40 pm
Location: Halifax
Contact:

Dividing Arcella, Frontonia, Paramecium pellicle, Holospora

Post by Psi Wavefunction »

Back with a couple goodies!
And news: off to Halifax to start a MSc on protist diversity and cell structure in June; among my first tasks will be to bring the scope up to sexy standards. And then learn some TEM! (are electron micrographs allowed here, by the way?)

A dividing arcellinid (Arcella sp. here): the new shell is the clear one; thecae tend to "rust" over time and turn brown.
Image

Frontonia full of tasty diatoms!
Image

The giant Bursaria are notable for rapidly deciliating ciliates, like Paramecia, upon contact -- and completely by the time the ciliates pass the gullet. Bursarias also have this annoying habit of exploding when you look at them, thus releasing half-digested and not-yet-digested Paramecia into the surroundings. Conveniently enough, those Paramecia are free of cilia, so you can get a really nice crisp view of the pellicle!
Image

Paramecium with a sporulating Holospora infection, from culture. The large refractile structure is... no, not the macronucleus. It is a micronucleus severely bloated by bacterial spores. Holospora spend part of their lives in nuclei, feeding on the chromatin and later sporulating. It's just one example of bacterial endosymbionts flourishing inside protist cells; not all are parasitic either.
Image

Incidentally, I found a clump of Peritrichs with bacteria in the macronucleus (some dividing; arrowhead); this has apparently not been recorded in the literature before, and I lost the critters before getting around to culture them =(
Image

Ok, this is probably enough to slow down the loading time. More later!
Cheers,
-Psi-

pwnell
Posts: 2029
Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2009 4:59 pm
Location: Tsawwassen, Canada

Post by pwnell »

Very interesting, thanks.

Ecki
Posts: 775
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:04 am
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Contact:

Post by Ecki »

Hi Psi,

Great to read you here! I enjoyed your blog a lot. SEM/TEM images are always welcome (I showed one today). In fact, I will be posting a lot of SEM images myself in a couple of months.

The Holospora infection is very interesting. In one of my amoeba cultures I found all amoeba with a strange "Nebenkörper" in the nucleus.

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=13471

Do you have any idea what this could be?

Regards from Berlin,
Ecki

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
Posts: 23543
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:34 am
Location: Richland, Washington State, USA
Contact:

Re: Dividing Arcella, Frontonia, Paramecium pellicle, Holosp

Post by rjlittlefield »

Psi Wavefunction wrote:And then learn some TEM! (are electron micrographs allowed here, by the way?)
Just to confirm -- yes, absolutely. I have a particular interest in comparisons of optical & electron micrographs, to help us understand what can and cannot be seen with optical. Most readers will never have a chance to work directly with electron scopes, so it's nice to know what we're missing. :D

--Rik

Bruce Taylor
Posts: 827
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2011 4:49 pm
Location: Wakefield, Quebec / Ottawa, Ontario
Contact:

Post by Bruce Taylor »

Ecki wrote: I enjoyed your blog a lot.
Since you're using the past tense, you must be referring to Skeptic Wonder (not dead, apparently...merely encysted :) ). In case you've missed it, here is her "new" blog: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ocelloid/

RogelioMoreno
Posts: 2978
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 11:24 am
Location: Panama

Post by RogelioMoreno »

Very interesting!

I could id the Apocarchesium thanks to your blog. :D

Rogelio

carlos.uruguay
Posts: 5358
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2012 8:05 pm
Location: Uruguay - Montevideo - America del Sur
Contact:

Post by carlos.uruguay »

Very interesting! Thank you for sharing!!!

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic