Vacant Difflugia Testate Amoeba Shells

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

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Mitch640
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Vacant Difflugia Testate Amoeba Shells

Post by Mitch640 »

This slide yielded 50 or 60 Difflugia Corona amoeba and a number of other microbes like Uroleptus and various rotifers. I had never seen so many on a single slide. The slide was left on the microscope overnight and now the shells are empty, giving a view of their interiors and showing how they were made. Many of the shells were left with the hole up, which for me at least is almost never the case. This gave me the opportunity to see how they were made.

1. Shot using the Nikon 20x Plan Apo. A stack of 4 or 5 images in Combine ZP.
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2. A 4 image stack of another shell. Some of the shells incorporated large pieces of quartz sand in their makeup, along with the "coronal" points.
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3. A 4 image stack. Showing the points on his "crown".
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4. A 5 image stack.
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5. Another 5 image stack with a diatom shell for size comparison. This one has also added other rubble to his shell for camouflage.
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Charles Krebs
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Post by Charles Krebs »

Mitch,

It is always a treat to be able to "study" amoeba tests.

On e question... were these quite "deep" in water, or did you do something different with the lighting? I mention this because (if I remember correctly) previous shots with your 20X Plan Apo looked "clean", but these (particularly the second one) seem to show some color aberrations.

Mitch640
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Post by Mitch640 »

Thanks Charles. The slide was dry when I shot these. I had left it on the stage overnight after shooting video and stills of them alive the day before. I think I will make a permanent slide out of it.

I believe only the first one is with the 20x. The other are stacks in Combine ZP and from the size of them, I used the 40x Plan Achromat on these.

When they were live though, I could not get any decent shots of the "crown points", as they were always up and the hole down. :)

Ferry
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Post by Ferry »

Hi Mitch,

Why do you think it is Difflugia corona? Did you see the typical 'teeth' around the mouth? I ask this, because the fourth specimen has relatively long spines. Just compare it with my observations: http://arcella.nl/Difflugia-corona
I would appreciate if you can make a better picture of this long-spine-fellow, for scientific reasons! Just add water to the slide!

Mitch640
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Post by Mitch640 »

Hi Ferry,

I am glad an expert looked in. I identified them from other images I found on Google. It's the best I could do. Even dead, very few of the shells presented the mouth towards the lens, and I did not see any that had regular teeth. I have seen other difflugia shells with three, four and 5 regular teeth, but those had no points on the outside of the shell.

I will try and look at this slide again, if it has survived this long, and if I can find this one shell out the many that were on it. :)

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

Post by Mitch640 »

I don't know if I can find one particular shell again. This slide has at least 70 shells under the coverslip. Some I can recognize, but there are just so many, and now that I have added water, there are black bubbles inside some of them and more around other parts of the slide. They seem to appear as it dried out again.

I already have about 12 images of spiked shells and their mouths, none of which have teeth on them. The good news is though, that the slide has survived my handling. I will continue tomorrow, looking for that one shell.

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