Diplophrys; snail egg

[Charles Krebs]

One of my old fresh water samples has pretty much "crashed" and there is not much activity. But one last look yielded a couple images.

Diplophrys is a small, shelled amoeba (about 10 microns across the circular shell). It has two "tufts" of pseudopodia that extend outward on opposite sides. I've always found them sort of eerie, like dis-embodied eyes floating around.
The pseudopods are difficult to see and photograph, even with DIC. They are probably a feature that would show up more clearly with phase contrast.
Olympus BHS. Olympus 60/1.40 S Plan Apo. Olympus NFK 1.67x photoeyepiece.DIC illumination with electronic flash. Canon 50D.


Nothing fancy here.... a snail egg that holds a snail that appears about ready to "go" at any moment. Darkfield with 10X.

[Mitch640]

That first image's light really has me confused. It looks like it's lit from the top or maybe the side, but not from below. Looks like a peaceful forest scene, in the fog. With a floating eye.

In the second one, I am waiting to find some snail eggs in my microbe aquarium. Some river snails seem to have made it into the tank from some sample jars that I thought had turned.

In both of them, I am wondering where the colors are coming from. Is it just a thing with Brightfield, that it washes all the colors out? I do get some greens from obvious green things, but virtually no other real colors come through. Are things just colorless, for the most part?

[Ecki]

Charles,

I never saw Diplophrys before. Thanks for the image.