Spirostomum ambiguum

[Erik]

Hello microscopists,

I would like to show you my new photos of a very large ciliate. This concerns Spirostomum ambiguum, which has a large similarity with a "worm". Its body length can amount to up to 2 mm. Spirostomum has a moniliform macronucleus and and a long adoral zone.

To the technology: 10x achromatic objective Ph; oblique illumination; Olympus C-40 (free hand through the eyepiece).



In phase contrast:



I hope the pictures find favours.

Erik

http://www.mikroansichten.de

[rjlittlefield]

I do not know this ciliate, but I do know good pictures, and these qualify.

In pic #1, I presume the long thin structures are a gut? In any case, the oblique illumination does a good job delineating it. The oblique illumination gives a very nice 3D effect, especially on the uppermost specimen.

In pic #2, I notice very good sharpness of the cilia. You don't mention shutter speed or flash illumination, but obviously whatever you are using is good to freeze the motion of these structures.

It is a "simple" technique -- handholding a camera to the eyepiece, but you have obviously mastered it very well. Nice job!

--Rik

[Erik]

Hi Rik,

In the upper species of picture 1 one you see the much-vigourous macronucleus (no gut). In the phase contrast picture you can see this macronucleus as the "colored points". The " long just funnel " in picture 2 is the esophagus. This ends in the contracting vacuole.

I have fixed the species with the help of the deckslide. Therefore, they look a little thicker than normal. Otherwise, phase contrast would not make sense (because you see nothing).

Many greetings

Erik

[Erik]

There was a mistake:

wrong: "... The " long just funnel " in picture 2 is the esophagus. This ends in the contracting vacuole. ..."

correct: "... in the middle species of picture 1 ..."

Sorry!!!

Erik

[bernhardinho]

wrong: "... The " long just funnel " in picture 2 is the esophagus. This ends in the contracting vacuole. ..."





Erik

Hi Erik,

nice to meet you here

I would like to make one comment to the use of the word "esophagus" in this context. I think it is rather misleading if not wrong at all! The expression is normally used for the gullet as a part of the digestive system in vertebrates. Ciliates of course don't have stomaches or gullets or what so ever. What we see very nicely here is the collecting channel of the contractile vacuole. The task of the latter is to balance the water content of the cell, meaning basically get rid of excess water. Ciliates have developed different set ups of this osmoregulatoric system. Sometimes they feature more than one vacuole in order to accomplish the task, in the case of Spirostomum, being a very large and prolonged cell, evolution has created a large vacuole combined with a huge and rather broad (water)collecting channel!



Bernhard

[beetleman]

Very nice pictures Erik. Lots of good detail in them. Great quality fo hand held . I am not that knowledgable on the anatomy, I just come to the micro forums to look at the pictures and learn from everyone else