this time I'd like to show some shots of the protist Salpingoeca. "My" Salpingoecas were attached to the stem of a Vorticella, but you can find them on other substrates like algae, too. In bright-field the contrast was only poor, but phase-contrast revealed some details:
Salpingoeca consists of a lorica with the cellbody inside and on top of the cellbody there is a weir, a kind of funnel, with a single, long flagellum in the middle. They are attached to the Vorticella via a short stem.
While studying the literature about Salpingoeca I found it interesting to read that S. belongs to the class of Choanoflagellatas. Choanoflagellatas are related to Choanocytes. These Choanocytes are found in all sponges and look and work like a Salpingoeca; especially the system weir - flagellum is very similar. Choanocytes in a sponge are doing the job of water-filtering for food, e.g. plankton, bacteria and detritus (organic waste).
Have fun!
