Day 2 Snail Eggs - Something Ate The Eggs

[Mitch640]

Not sure what happened, but this morning, the gelatinous covering of the egs was falling apart and there were only 4 or 5 eggs left in it. I could see many smaller cells from inside the eggs sprinkled around in the sample. Not sure if it was from handling them, the light from the condenser or all the huge Stentors living inside the jelly.

I have other egg sacs, but will only put them on a slide when I see something happening to them.

These images are follow ups from this thread..

I didn't know what to expect today, when I dipped the same egg sac out of the aquarium and put it on a slide. I used a depressed slide and a coverslip after adding enough water to fill the depression on the slide. I centered the condenser for each objective and set the iris.

Right away, I saw a difference in the insides of the eggs. The small spheres were smooth skinned yesterday, although different colors. Today, they are starting to change, getting bumps and points on them. At 20 power, you can even see the sheath around each egg. Very interesting. The grainy look, like the images were printed on rag paper, comes from looking deep into the jelly holding the individual eggs into one mass. Since the eggs are pure white, they reflect and refract a lot of light, producing a haze when the condenser light hits them. I could not see the hex patterns seen in the 20x images until I was processing them.

4x.


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[Mitch640]

Some Day 3 images. The little cells are dividing, and you can begin to see the nucleus inside each little cell.