help!, what is this bug!

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Adrian
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help!, what is this bug!

Post by Adrian »

i found this bug in some sea water sample, its been under the slide for over 3 weeks now, and still living, they are fairly large, much larger then then ciliate, and they seem to have about 5 weird tenticale leg things on the bottom side of there body, which they seem to use as swimming device

Image

the pic is under 40x objective with brightfeild lighting, i ajusted the levels/curves and then a unsharp mask, with photoshop

i think i need to learn how to do backround subtraction, anyone have any tips?

thanks

bernhardinho
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Post by bernhardinho »

Hi Adrian,

this "bug" is clearly a ciliate!! The "weird legs" are called cirri. They're sort of merged cilies and are a typical feature of the hypotrich ciliates. I don't find it particurlarly large, by the way. That looks familiar to me in 400x mag. By the shape it could be Euplotes, Aspidisca or even something like Discomorphella or Saprodinium.

As to the background: do you know this tool:

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/digi ... olkit.html

It is easy to use and quite useful.

Best wishes

Bernhard

Ken Ramos
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Post by Ken Ramos »

It does look like some sort of Euplote. :D

beetleman
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Post by beetleman »

I would love to do a little plankton dipping
Take Nothing but Pictures--Leave Nothing but Footprints.
Doug Breda

Wim van Egmond
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Post by Wim van Egmond »

Gee, that is a good tool, Bernhard! As always it is only for PC users :(

Wim

discomorphella
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Post by discomorphella »

You may also want to check out the background subtraction options in imageJ. I am not too familiar with marine ciliates, but it could be something like an Aspidisca or a Discomorphella... I hope its the latter...they do like to live in fairly anoxic environments.

--David

Adrian
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Post by Adrian »

oh its a ciliate? its a strange thing isnt it! well i think it is

thank you

how do i load a user defined backround for the toolkit?

ill check out that ImageJ too thanks.


i got more haha!

what are these bugs?



Image
these are allso still alive and in the same slide as the beast tenticale ciliate, they about half the size or smaller, then the beasts, not as ugly eather.

there where about 6 different types of bugs in the orginal sea water sample, all of them have died off after the first week, accept the beast ciliates and this kind are still alive (week 3 now).

i think i did quite well processing this image, for a microphotography newbie that is!


Image
and this one was allso in the same water however it was found on the 1st day and it was the only one i found of its kind, it vanished quite quickly though, and i never saw it again,

larger the the beasts, not as ugly and allso not as fast/agressive as them, movement and actions slow like a slug, determining the front of its body is to the left by the way it moved, strechy head area, that contracts


by the way anyone have any tips of better improving my image processing? i am just adjusting the levels/curves and unsharp mask, with photoshop

thanks

bernhardinho
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Post by bernhardinho »

Hi again,

well, the upper one is very likely to be an Euplotes. The lower one is a ciliate too, could be some sort of Litonotus, Amphileptus or Loxophyllum. By the way, in ciliates there is no "front side" as such. We distinguish between dorsal and ventral side, the latter being defined as to where the mouthopening (peristome) lies.

To the toolkit: well; I work with it using my intuition, I must confess. Load a picture with a more or less even background, now use the little dots you have to move around and you see the effect in the right window. When it's seems even enough click on "File/save background". From then on, everytime you load an image, you just click on "substraction image" and the saved background is apllied.

As to the image processing with PS I think there are better experts than me, but I guess it will be hard to give any advice as long as one doesn't know the original image.

Bernhard

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