on a north windowsill. But even when all desmids life ended, lots of durable, empty amoeba shells
can be found there.
One wonderful challenge is, to make some selected type slides or habitat slides,
not just for aesthetic reasons but to have a permanent slide with an overview of amoeba life forms
of this certain habitat too. Because the shells are much bigger than small diatoms,
this works well with a little patience and routine.
This is one of my first, very simple arrangements of amoeba shells.
Fixative media was a shellac-solution in Isopropanol, applied to a coverglass. When the Isopropanol is evaporated,
a very thin layer of shellac remains. The amoeba shells then were arranged under the binocular.
A short heating up to 100 degrees Celsius fasten the shells to the glass.
Now Xylene is applied for about half an hour, to expel air out of the amoeba shells.
For the final mounting i let the Xylene evaporate nearly complete. Then i put a drop of mounting media,
Caedax, or Pertex to a slide, turn it around 180 degrees an pick the coverglass.
For further information of mounting diatoms, this side is very useful :
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag//ar ... atoms.html
The first picture shows the arrangement with a 5 x objective,
the second image is a stack of Lesquereusia spiralis out of the arrangement.
Thanks for looking,
Gerd
