Nassula and Frontonia

discomorphella · Post by **discomorphella** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 10:05 pm

I was rummaging through a dish of pond water under the stereoscope when I saw a small pair of purplish protozoa swim by. It turned out to be a dividing Nassula that was almost ready to separate. There was another ciliate that was close by and I managed to pipet both of them up in the same drop. I am not sure about the identity of their friend, I think it keys out to Frontonia but I am not certain. I am sure that one of you will be able to assist however. The putative Frontonia then rammed the dividing Nassulae and broke them apart, and helpfully rolled one of the Nassula onto its side where I could get a good shot of its cytostome. The "friend" must have gotten some ideas from the Nassula, because when I finally caught him his nucleus was starting to look like it was approacing metaphase. Assuming that is his nucleus of course.
All photos taken with a BX-60, UPlanApo 40/0.85, variable mag changer and Variozoom eyepiece set at 5X with a 0.32X projection lens and a D300. All of these were flash pictures, with an SB-800 firing through the back of the Olympus halogen lamp house (Verzeihen Sie mir Professor Koehler...) to provide something very close to proper Koehler illumination with the flash. Flash synch at 1/320.
Has anybody had any luck culturing Nassula? I am looking through the literature but if anyone has any recipes...

David

]

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 10:16 pm

Wonderful photos!

I'm a little confused about the setup. I'm not reading anything in here about DIC, I am reading Koehler, and I'm also seeing a strong 3D appearance. I'm having trouble making sense of this combination. Is it DIC, or is there some strong oblique component to the lighting?

--Rik

discomorphella · Post by **discomorphella** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 10:20 pm

My bad, I left out the DIC components...the optical train should read

All photos taken with a BX-60, DAPO40 DIC lower DIC prism, UPlanApo 40/0.85, U-DICT Nomarski upper prism, variable mag changer and Variozoom eyepiece set at 5X with a 0.32X projection lens and a D300. All of these were flash pictures, with an SB-800 firing through the back of the Olympus halogen lamp house (Verzeihen Sie mir Professor Koehler...) to provide something very close to proper Koehler illumination with the flash. Flash synch at 1/320.
All images were color temp corrected with Nikon View NX and then background divided and scale bars attached with ImageJ

Thanks for catching the omission Rik, your internal image processor is still hard at work even after hours here....

David

arturoag75 · Post by **arturoag75** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 11:41 pm

Really very nice shots

!
arturo

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 4:06 am

Very nice set, I like a lot the first picture.

Rogelio

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 4:20 am

Definitely Frontonia (F. leucas, probably). The mouth and suture are clearly visible in the first pic.

Nice images! I love watching Nassula.

naturephoto1 · Post by **naturephoto1** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 4:36 am

David,

Really well done photos with outstanding detail.

Rich

discomorphella · Post by **discomorphella** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 11:13 am

Thanks for all your comments.
Bruce, is that Frontonia starting to divide? The nucleus (if I've identified it correctly) is starting to look like a metaphase nucleus in a standard histological preparation.

Thanks,

David

curt0909 · Post by **curt0909** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 10:33 pm

Very nice. Love the colors

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 6:15 am

discomorphella wrote:Bruce, is that Frontonia starting to divide? The nucleus (if I've identified it correctly) is starting to look like a metaphase nucleus in a standard histological preparation.

I wish I knew. I noticed the odd texture of that macronucleus, but don't know what's going on there. I did a quick scan of the literature on macronucleus division in Frontonia, but I'm afraid I don't know enough to draw anything useful from my reading.