Water bear body, legs and "feet"

curt0909 · Post by **curt0909** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 5:26 pm

Nice shot. I've only managed to find one of these guys so far.

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 6:04 pm

A wonderful image! The leg muscles are so sharply defined. I wonder...are those eggs, around the perimeter of the creature?

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 6:53 pm

Bruce,

I won't hazard a guess as to what those are. I've occasionally seen some odd things inside tardegrades. One of the most puzzling I've seen was just a few months after I got my first "serious" microscope back in 2004:

http://www.photomacrography1.net/forum/ ... .php?t=774
(Thread has links to other shots of this oddity. Still looking for an answer

)

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 7:20 pm

Marvellously bizarre, Charles!

It has to be an infection...a quick literature search turns up quite a number of articles about Tardigrade parasites. Most seem to be fungal. I'll browse a few of the articles, and see if I run across something similar.

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:27 pm

Charlie, a very rushed and sketchy tour of the literature on micrometazoan parasites turns up quite a few organisms that are known to infect tardigrades. One that caught my eye was the oomycete (fungus-like eukaryotes, also called "water moulds") Myzocytiopsis, shown here in a waterbear:

(From http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 5X97800110)

I'm not suggesting this is the same organism as the ones in your remarkable photos of 2004...just that it seems to have similar habits.

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Fri Mar 08, 2013 2:38 am

without comment, the world championship :

canonian · Post by **canonian** » Fri Mar 08, 2013 7:37 am

Wonderful, almost cuddly (:?) creatures, very well photographed, Charles.

curt0909 wrote:Nice shot. I've only managed to find one of these guys so far.

Couple of weeks ago I craped a microscope slide over the slightly algae-rich hardwood of my patio and found four of them, along with some nematodes and bdelloid rotifers.
Guess I'm lucky to have them almost next to my studio.
I know some people haven't found any yet. Moss and lichen are good places to find them.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Fri Mar 08, 2013 11:49 am

Thanks for the comments.

Bruce,
Thanks for "digging" a little to see what might be up with the specimen in the older (2004) picture. It certainly would appear to be an infection or parasite. What surprised me at the time was how active it was. Observing it, my impression was that something that invasive should surely slowed it down or have killed it at the stage it appeared.

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Fri Mar 08, 2013 2:59 pm

Charlie, I guess that's just further proof that Tardigrades really are the toughest animals in the world.

Ichthyophthirius · Post by **Ichthyophthirius** » Fri Mar 08, 2013 3:40 pm

Bruce Taylor wrote:A wonderful image! The leg muscles are so sharply defined. I wonder...are those eggs, around the perimeter of the creature?

Hi Bruce, Which "eggs" are you thinking of? Or are you talking about the large coelomocytes, here seen above and below the intestine?

Kind regards,

Jon

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Fri Mar 08, 2013 8:36 pm

Ichthyophthirius wrote:
Bruce Taylor wrote:A wonderful image! The leg muscles are so sharply defined. I wonder...are those eggs, around the perimeter of the creature?
Hi Bruce, Which "eggs" are you thinking of? Or are you talking about the large coelomocytes, here seen above and below the intestine?

Kind regards,

Jon

Yes, I was wondering about the large oval bodies, on either side of the gut. So these are "coelomocytes"? Thanks...I'd never heard of them, before.

Ichthyophthirius · Post by **Ichthyophthirius** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 6:52 am

Yes, they are a feature, not a parasite.

Tardigrade coelomocytes are supposed to have a combined blood cell/storage cell function. In this species of tardigarde they are particularly big.

Jon

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 8:40 am

Thanks, Jon...most interesting. How about the phenomenon in Charlie's 2004 photos (which I was interpreting as a possible infection)? Coelomocytes, again?

Ichthyophthirius · Post by **Ichthyophthirius** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 9:17 am

Hi, The objects from 2004, to me, look like the spores of some kind of parasite (see the thick spore walls), but I don't know what parasite it is. http://www.photomacrography1.net/forum/ ... .php?t=774, first picture