Freshwater snail radula

blepharopsis · Post by **blepharopsis** » Wed May 15, 2019 10:12 am

Hi there, been a while. Here is some snail tongue imaged with a LSCM, 40x NA 1.3. The width of the image is 303 um. Depth color-coded. Enjoy!

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Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Wed May 15, 2019 11:21 am

Wow SUPER !

blepharopsis · Post by **blepharopsis** » Wed May 15, 2019 11:51 am

Thanks, Jacek. Dang, I forgot how to post stuff to this very fine forum, I'm turning into my grandpa...

carlos.uruguay · Post by **carlos.uruguay** » Wed May 15, 2019 4:45 pm

Super nice!!!

Sumguy01 · Post by **Sumguy01** » Wed May 15, 2019 9:00 pm

Very nice.
Love the colors.
Thanks for sharing.

WalterD · Post by **WalterD** » Wed May 15, 2019 11:31 pm

Spectacular!!!

I'm very glad to see your new pictures posted, the series you made a couple of years ago are still my all time favourites.
What confocal laser scanning microscope are you using?

Best regards
Walter

grgh · Post by **grgh** » Thu May 16, 2019 3:59 am

Very nice photos,
how on earth do you get pictures of a snails tongue?

something different,..... I enlarged your photo and then, by accident moved the screen up and down really fast. what an effect? nearly mind blowing.

Smokedaddy · Post by **Smokedaddy** » Thu May 16, 2019 8:54 am

Excellent!

zed · Post by **zed** » Thu May 16, 2019 9:01 am

Very neat! Is this auto-fluorescence or some IHC labeling?

blepharopsis · Post by **blepharopsis** » Thu May 16, 2019 9:06 am

So, guys, snail tongues are absolutely fascinating and a great subject for polarized light or fluorescent/confocal photomicrography - and each one is different! Google "radula" and check out all the images. Getting a tongue out of a poor mollusk is a bit messy - you have to liquefy the body using either household products like bleach or Drano (sodium or potassium hydroxide) or trypsinate it into oblivion (my preferred method). The radula (and sometimes upper beak-like "jaw" are the only hard parts within the mollusk's head.
Can anyone hook me up with some marine snails like periwinkles or small whelks? I'm being totally serious

micro_pix · Post by **micro_pix** » Fri May 17, 2019 2:33 am

Beautifully done! I’m looking forward to seeing a periwinkle tongue now.

Dave

blepharopsis · Post by **blepharopsis** » Fri May 17, 2019 5:49 am

Zed - Thanks

I used Congo Red, beats autofluorescence almost every time in terms of signal strength.

pwnell · Post by **pwnell** » Mon May 27, 2019 12:53 pm

Breathtakingly beautiful as always.

Robert Berdan · Post by **Robert Berdan** » Tue Jun 04, 2019 9:59 am

HI - beautiful images, could you please explain or provide a link to depth colour coding. Are you using Image J to apply colour to a black and white image?

Thank you
RB

blepharopsis · Post by **blepharopsis** » Thu Jun 06, 2019 12:37 pm

Hi Robert,
yes, I used Fiji/ImageJ Hyperstacks function (I think it's under "Image") - it offers a whole bunch of color options/gradients, and you will double that by inverting the stacks.

Freshwater snail radula

Freshwater snail radula

as subject

Depth colour coding