Euglena

discomorphella · Post by **discomorphella** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 10:49 pm

This creature was crawling about in the mud from one of the local ponds. I am not sure if its E. oxyuris or E. ehrenbergi or someone else, but hopefully those with access to better keys than I have can enlighten me. All photos taken with a D300 using an SB-800 remote flash through the Koehler illumination system of a BX-60 (1/320 flash synch) with DIC. Optics: UPlanApo 40/0.85 objective and U-CA variable mag changer. Images relayed to the D300 using a Leitz Variozoom eyepiece and 0.32X projection lens. The flash is basically firing directly through the lamp...someday I'll have to rig up something more elegant, but for now..
The first shot has details of the striations on the pellicle, and the last is a composite of some of the many conformations this euglena took as it crawled around the slide. I included shots though a few focal planes.

David

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:30 am

David,

Nice set! The pattern on the first one remember me of subject from few months ago.

Rogelio

Mitch640 · Post by **Mitch640** » Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:40 am

I am always impressed with the detail of DIC images. Everything is so clear. compare to brightfield.

discomorphella · Post by **discomorphella** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:29 pm

Thanks Mitch and Rogelio.
Anyone have a solid ID on this Euglena? I was also thinking E. spirogyra possibly as well. It was very active and showed a lot of metaboly, as well as crawling motion. I just couldn't get a decent shot of the flagellum, as it was kind of tucked under the euglena and I had it pretty squished down under the coverslip to try and flatten/slow it down.

David

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 8:05 am

An admirable series of photos. I particularly like the one that shows the pellicle strips so clearly. (I wish I'd had a picture like that when I was re-writing the Wikipedia entry on Euglena last fall. I do have one of an empty pellicle, but it was too poorly focused to use).

E. oxyuris is improbable: it is semi-rigid, minimally metabolic (and has recently been moved to the genus Lepocinclis...see Marin et al, 2003).

I don't see anything to rule out E. ehrenbergii...but there are hundreds of Euglena species, as you know.

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 8:56 am

Bruce,

I think I have a picture of Euglena showing the pellicle, let me know if you want it for any of your publication or writting.

Rogelio

discomorphella · Post by **discomorphella** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:08 am

Bruce,

If you want to use any of these feel free as well.

David

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:50 am

Thanks, David and Rogelio...your amazing pics would add some real class to the joint.

discomorphella · Post by **discomorphella** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:56 am

Bruce--

Let us know by PM if you want full-sized pictures. Both of us are using > 10 Mpxl cameras; however these images are re-sized to 1024 x 680 (approximately) and compressed for ease of web browsing. It won't make a huge difference, but there are some fine details that may be a bit sharper in the uncompressed full-fat images, or in some less filtered version.

David

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 10:49 am

Thanks, David...it'll probably be a while before I get back to editing Wikipedia (which has been a marvellous exercise for me...the need to document and justify claims imposes a bit of discipline on my rampant curiosity

). Keep in mind that images on Wikimedia commons are freely licensed / donated to the public domain. Wikimedia does record authorship of images, but anyone can use them.

Incidentally, there are other places where images might be needed, but I am going to check with the site owners before suggesting them...