
'Cops' that´s what the Copepoda are sometimes informally called over here.

The micro guys might now recognize some of the over all body shape from those copepods they are familiar with from their fresh water pond samples. And I first thought about cheating and posting this one without the scale bar over in the micro section.


This one here is a female, easily recognizable from the 'egg sacks' which are here more of a tubular form. It´s a marine caligid copepod, a parasite that lives on fishes. Though they have that whitish orange-brown colour when alive, this one was dead when I found it, probably for some time already and some decay and the fixation of the preservative have left their traces, e. g. the tissue has shrunk a bit within the exoskeleton.
The dark ground is original and not generated digitally. I have just wiped out a few dust fibres that were lighting up distractingly. Not stacked yet, just to play with lighting, lens stopped down to f11 and thus not at max. resolution, but hey, I´m already quite pleased with the outcome.
Hope you enjoy!
--Betty
