Is There A Ciliate 300µm Long? ID Needed

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

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Mitch640
Posts: 2137
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2010 1:43 pm

Is There A Ciliate 300µm Long? ID Needed

Post by Mitch640 »

My first words upon seeing this guy were, "What the heck is THAT?"

Some background. I found him, let's call him Bruno, I found Bruno "inside" the gelatinous mass of snail eggs I was photographing, but outside the individual eggs. He is roughly 300µm long, moves exceedingly slow, can't change shape too much, any more than a snail could, looks like he has vacuoles that evacuate, [see video], has cilia around his head/nose/mouth, has no snail eyestalks, seems to have a digestive tract. It looks like he was crawling on the bottom side of the coverslip, [see video], but that's not possible, as he was inside the gelatinous mass of the egg case.

My guess is, he is a snail parasite, which I know they are loaded with. Other guesses are an amoeba, baby snail, ciliate of some kind. I hope someone can positively ID him.

Video of Bruno.

A comparison of Bruno to one of the snail eggs. Bruno is just to the North of the bottom egg. 4x.
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A full frame shot at 10x.
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A crop at 10x. It's not grainy, that is the gelatin of the surrounding egg sac, with Bruno, a Vorticella and other assorted opportunists.
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20x full frame.
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Gyrosigma
Posts: 134
Joined: Fri Aug 04, 2006 6:39 am
Location: France Normandie
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Post by Gyrosigma »

Hello Mitch,

Probabely a Stentor...

Best regards

Dominique

Mitch640
Posts: 2137
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2010 1:43 pm

Post by Mitch640 »

Hi Dominique,

I think you are right. I did get images of another, free swimming stentor, from the same area, but he was only 1/3rd the size of this big one. However, he did have many similarities.

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Thanks for the ID. :)

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