Hyalotheca dissiliens (colonial filamentous desmid)

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 6:52 pm

I scooped up some green algal "mat" from one of my favorite locations. The appearance puzzled me at first, especially the thick mucilage sheath. But it appears to be Hyalotheca, a colonial filamentous desmid. Pretty sure the species is Hyalotheca dissiliens.

Linden.g · Post by **Linden.g** » Thu Mar 28, 2013 7:03 pm

This is stunning, what do they look like as a single cross section

Marek Mis · Post by **Marek Mis** » Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:31 am

Charlie,

Great images ! The last one is very impressive. It is very graphic. Beautiful !

Marek

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:42 am

in addition to great pictures, you have an artistic sense. Congratulations

arturoag75 · Post by **arturoag75** » Fri Mar 29, 2013 9:07 am

Very clear shots ..i like a lot!

Wim van Egmond · Post by **Wim van Egmond** » Sat Mar 30, 2013 2:10 am

Great pictures, the third one is very special! I can imagine that this is a favourite pond because when you have desmids like these in it there will be many other interesting species.

Wim

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Sat Mar 30, 2013 6:26 am

Beautiful set!

Rogelio

seta666 · Post by **seta666** » Sat Mar 30, 2013 8:52 am

I love the last one, would make a nice wall picture

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sun Mar 31, 2013 9:59 am

Thank you all for the comments.

Quite amazing how these can move toward the light. I poured the jar that contained the sample in to a different (flat, square) container,. It was as if they disappeared completely into the mud and muck as things got swirled around. I placed one of those Ikea light shining into one corner of the new dish. The next morning there was a nice clean bright green "mass" directly under the light.

Wim van Egmond · Post by **Wim van Egmond** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 2:12 am

Yes, all desmids move, last year I made some time lapses and they all swim, a bit like diatoms. Probably using the mucus excresion as propulsion?

Wim

pwnell · Post by **pwnell** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 11:23 am

I agree, absolutely beautiful.

curt0909 · Post by **curt0909** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 11:59 am

I like the overlap interference. They're so evenly crossed you would think it was artificially positioned this way

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 4:48 pm

Wim,

Yes, all desmids move, last year I made some time lapses and they all swim, a bit like diatoms.

Naturally I am used to diatoms cruising around on my slides. These move very slowly and steadily. And they certainly do know where the light is and relentlessly head towards it!

Here is a shot of the dish the day after I poured my sample into it and placed a light at one corner. As I said, initially it was hard to discern anything at all with a green color to it since things were so evenly mixed, it just looked like a bowl of mud and silt. The next morning however this is what it looked like (easy to pull out a nice clean sample to photograph

):