Euglena Motoring Around Using Metaboly Movement - Video

Mitch640 · Post by **Mitch640** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 4:19 am

A sample derived from a pinch of Hornwort leaves from my microbe aquarium produced a small pellet at the tip of a centrifuge tube after about 4 minutes of spinning at 6000rpm.

The sample has a large number of star shaped bacteria cells, plus a nice collection of euglena that are moving around using metaboly movement, which seems very similar to amoeba movement or something like an inchworm. I have not witnessed them doing this before. Also look for the flagella at one end.

Most of the video was shot using a Nikon 40x Plan Achromat lens on a Nikon Fluophot scope with a Canon T1i camera adapted to the trinocular tube.

Here's the video.

fpelectronica · Post by **fpelectronica** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:03 am

Nice video
The Euglena is, I think, Astasia.
Their movement is reminiscent of the "belly dance"
Francisco

Mitch640 · Post by **Mitch640** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:17 am

Thanks for the tip Francisco. I Googled for Astasia and found a page with images and a description, so it appears you are right on with the ID. They have a full name of Astasia klebsii.

A description of Astasia, with images.

fpelectronica · Post by **fpelectronica** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 11:32 am

You can see some images here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKDEqILu ... cker=False
Francisco

Mitch640 · Post by **Mitch640** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 11:39 am

Very nice video. I seem to find something new every time I dip into my aquarium.