This time the plankton net itself remained rather empty, a second sampling location close to the first one contained a versatile collection of algae and diatom material.
Diatoms growing together in something like tubes, diatoms overgrowing algae material and diatoms in other string and chainlike formations.
And in that diatom mix I discovered an extravagant Platynereis larvae, a bristle worm (1). A living specimen which I captured in a stack when it had its quiet moment.
The image has not been enhanced whatsoever, so that green belly was actually there. You can notice the characteristic bristle hairs developing, and a rudimentary variant too.
For the rest there were more youngsters in the vincinity of that plant material, including copepods in different stages and bell animacules (2).
The conclusion was we had to wait a couple more weeks to find that explosion of phytoplankton colouring the samples brownish green, anyhow as you can see it was worth the effort.
My special thanks to the founder and president of the Micropolitan Museum for his expertise and inspiration.
1366 pixel resolution : https://we.tl/iwSz6JhZ9d
1 25x DIC
2 25x DIC
3 25x DIC
4 25x DIC
5 16x Polarization
6 25x DIC
