Mold Stalks - Spores And A Testate Amoeba Breeding Ground

Mitch640 · Post by **Mitch640** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 4:53 am

At least I think they are Testate Amoeba, by the thousands. I have been wrong so many times, but they do look like shelled amoeba, doing something.

I was fooled again. After putting some mold fibers I had found growing on a small piece of Walnut wood on a slide with a drop of water and a coverslip, I was looking at the mold stalk hairs and a hefty sprinkling of spores from the fungus.

Here's a rather long video of them.

Ecki · Post by **Ecki** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 10:56 am

Mitch,

these are not Testate Amoebae.

Regards
Eckhard

Mitch640 · Post by **Mitch640** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 11:01 am

Eckhard, what are they? I don't have anything higher power than a 40x, but it looked like they had pseudopods. Fooled again. LOL

Ecki · Post by **Ecki** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 11:36 am

Eckhard, what are they?

I don't know and I don't really trust the colors (no offense intended). I would try to stain them with Cotton Blue. If they are fungus spores you will see much greater detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_blue

Regards
Eckhard

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 12:14 pm

My vote is mold spores.

Mitch640 · Post by **Mitch640** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 12:53 pm

After some Google searching, I have to agree. Two kinds of spores in one sample kind of doesn't seem logical, but after looking at some microscopic images of mold spores, it may not be common, but it does happen. I also found pictures of a spore that I have seen now and then in other samples, wondering what it was.

It still seems kind of strange that these are motile though.