Argulus sp. - fish louse

gpmatthews · Post by **gpmatthews** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 1:49 am

I find it frustrating that when I bring samples back home I often never get to look at them because there are so many other things I should be doing. Last weekend I applied a simple solution - I set up my microscope at the local Reserve and examined the samples "on location". This was good for publicity and general social activites as well (although another source of distraction from the samples!).

Here is a picture of a parasitic fish louse I took:

Size was ~2 mm

Microscope: Zeiss Standard GFL
Objective: Zeiss 1.6/0.03 - 5/0.1
Ocular: Zeiss KPL-W 10/18
Substage: Zeiss 0.9NA Fliptop with top flipped out/substage wheelstop
Specimen: Warnham Local Nature Reserve, Horsham, UK, 03-Jul-2011

Below and wider spaced than the eyes are two suckers used for attachment to fish. This specimen was free swimming from a plankton net sample from Warnham Millpond.

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 4:24 am

Not good news for the local fish population. A nice picture of a thoroughly nasty (if you're a fish) crustacean.