Pompholyxophrys punicea. Blepharisma.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sun Mar 31, 2013 10:23 am

Yesterday I pulled some water and debris from underneath the Hyalotheca dissiliens and put it on a slide. It is not that often these days where I will cruise through a wet mount and see two attractive species I had not seen before, at least not with the appearance they had last night. (Maybe it is just their Easter color, they got jealous of Wim's spectacular Nassula

)

Here they are, any ID suggestions welcomed.

Edit:
Ecki provided the proper ID (Pompholyxophrys punicea) for what I had initially thought was a heliozoan. For more info see:
http://eol.org/pages/488709/overview
http://www.arcella.nl/pompholyxophrys-punicea

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Sun Mar 31, 2013 10:59 am

excellent images as always

Linden.g · Post by **Linden.g** » Sun Mar 31, 2013 12:45 pm

Amazing colours Charlie

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Sun Mar 31, 2013 2:55 pm

Fabulous! The ciliate is unquestionably a Blepharisma.

Sumguy01 · Post by **Sumguy01** » Sun Mar 31, 2013 5:51 pm

Very nice
Thank you for sharing these .
I find your pictures very interesting and am inspired to try different technics
to get better shots .
Thanks for the tips that you are always passing on to help us less skilled Charles Krebs wanabees

Wim van Egmond · Post by **Wim van Egmond** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 2:05 am

Very beautiful pictures Charlie, and thank you or your kind words. I have found Blepharismas in the woodlands here (with an EELWD lens I might be able to shoot them from my balcony

and was puzzled because they seemed to vary in size and shape. But I think there are several species. The usual shape is not very elongated. But the one you photographed is very long.

Very nice how it descends from the diatom stairs!

Wim

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 5:11 am

Charlie,

Very nice, excellent find!

Rogelio

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 6:15 am

Wim van Egmond wrote: But I think there are several species. The usual shape is not very elongated. But the one you photographed is very long.

When rewriting the English wikipedia article on the genus, I counted 40 accepted species (although there are probably a few synonyms within that number). The size and shape are extremely variable, and some are quite long and slender.

The pink cortical granules (a pigment known as Blepharismin) are distinctive to the genus. If a ciliate is pink and has a long peristome, it is probably Blepharisma.

Ecki · Post by **Ecki** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:23 am

Charlie,

this is Pompholyxophrys punicea (Archer, 1869). Although it looks like a Heliozoan it is in fact a nucleariid amoeba. It lacks the kinetocysts of centrohelida and has no microtubular axonemes (Patterson, 1985).

It is very beautiful und pretty rare. Congratulations to the find and the wonderful shot.

Best regards
Ecki

carlos.uruguay · Post by **carlos.uruguay** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 9:46 am

beautiful images!
carlos

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 10:45 am

Ecki:

this is Pompholyxophrys punicea (Archer, 1869). Although it looks like a Heliozoan it is in fact a nucleariid amoeba. It lacks the kinetocysts of centrohelida and has no microtubular axonemes (Patterson, 1985).

It is very beautiful und pretty rare. Congratulations to the find and the wonderful shot.

Ecki,

Thanks so much for the ID. This is the first time I've seen one of these. I'll change the title to update.

Ferry · Post by **Ferry** » Sun Apr 14, 2013 1:54 pm

Hi Charles,

Sorry, I've missed your post completely

But thanks to Eckhard Pompholyxophrys has got a name.
Just two remarks about this nice amoeboid.
New insights show that this genus is not closely related to Nuclearia, as we once thought.
In my samples it's pretty common. This species prefers water with Spagnum-contact, or in any case weak acid conditions and usually shallow water. Because it's nearly always moving, it's hard to make pictures of it. Your picture is stunning sharp, as usual. I've once seen a comparable micrograph by Michael Plewka, here http://www.mikroskopie-forum.de/index.php?topic=8164.0

Ferry

Simon W · Post by **Simon W** » Wed Apr 17, 2013 5:02 pm

Beautiful colours Charlie, glad to see you are still the master and inspiration around here. Are these single images with flash? The thought of stacking such fast moving critters scares me!

I'll be going near our local beach soon, hope to be taking plenty of live shots soon of our Aussie beach marvels.

Thanks for your site again, I used its scale tutorial to produce my own 1mm scale measurements for my 'new' setup - using a full size sensor is radically different to the former 1.6 sensor on my 40D. Like iMax now!

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Thu Apr 18, 2013 4:29 pm

Simon,
Thank you!

Yes, they are both electronic flash. Absolutely needed for the Blepharisma, but I probably could have dome the Pompholyxophrys without it (if I were patient enough

)