Histiobalantium

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:00 am

Histiobalantium or so it appears to be. The buccal cavity located about mid way of the cell with a undulating membrane is hard to track down both in books and on the PIS. However, I think this is a close match. The numerous stiff cilia and the presence of the symbionts seem to fit, along with the location of the buccal cavity, shape and general appearance of the organism, and membrane structure. If indeed this is Histiobalantium, then I am afraid I will have to stick my nose in the air and say that my image looks much better than what is pictured on the Protist Server.

Histiobalantium
Sony DSC-P200
Manual Mode
1/200 sec. @ f/2.8 ISO 100
Zeiss Axiostar Plus 40X/0.65 CP Achromat
Brightfield halogen illumination w/clear blue filter and white diffuser
Stitch and Processing: Photo Impact 6

Bruce Williams · Post by **Bruce Williams** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:34 am

Excellent images Ken - clean with bags of detail and nice colour too!

Bruce

Wim van Egmond · Post by **Wim van Egmond** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:01 am

Keep that nose in the air, Ken, they are great!

I wonder, did you crop much? Perhaps you have enough resolution left to crop a bit more and show the organisms bigger?

Wim

bernhardinho · Post by **bernhardinho** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:58 am

Hi Ken,

big aplause from me !! You did an extremely good job with these pics. But I am dumbfounded how you tracked down the ID. I don't think I would have found it, I had never heard (nor seen)of that genus before.

Bernhard

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:49 am

I tried a 100% crop to see if I could drag out any more detail but the sharpness of the image seemed to fail and looked, well sort of soft.

I had never heard of this genus before either but I did not want to post as "unidentified." That's the less informative and easy way out but then there are sometimes when an organism such as this or maybe others, just plain refuse to be found in the annuls of science. There are numerous amounts of these things in the sample which I took from a very small, about 3 foot wide 6 inch deep, stream of slow moving water. The area has copious amounts of decaying hardwood tree leaves, left over from the autumn leaf drop. There were also "gobs" of frog eggs in the tiny pools of the stream. With the leaves not out on the trees as of yet, the late winter sun warmed the water quite nicely, being that it is shallow with a dark muddy and sandy bottom.

Thanks guys!

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:59 pm

Beautiful pictures Ken...I cannot believe you have frog eggs in the water.....this morning it was -5*F (yes that is "MINUS" 5) when I hopped out of bed. This sunday it is supposed to hit 50*F

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 3:11 pm

Hey Doug! Everything is blooming down here. Temps in the 60's though the nights are a bit cool. Thanks Doug

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 3:31 pm

Ken, do you have the book or PDF of that book Tom has listed in the beginning of the micro forum?? They have a good picture of your critter on page 16 & 186 (Histiobalantium natans)...if you don`t have it, you should. Very nice PDF file for $4.00.

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 3:41 pm

No Doug I do not have the PDF, I was however, planning to order the book through my local book store but haven't as yet.