Tardigrade

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 7:16 pm

The last water bear I posted was in the belly of a worm

... so when I found this one crawling around some debris I thought it would be nice to get a more pleasing portrayal of this subject. In the first image the focus on the head is near the surface, in the second it is toward the "inside", and the complex buccal pharyngeal apparatus can be seen more clearly.

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 3:58 am

Amazing that little critter stayed in one place long enough for these exquist shots there Charlie.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 8:54 pm

Ken,
My experience with these guys is that they don't always cover a lot of ground (as in "Point A to Point B") but they are always squirming every which way. So it's not always easy to get a "live" shot where you have enough "parts" in focus to make the picture interesting. I try to concentrate on the first two "legs" and the head... when it looks like I've got something in the same plane of focus I shoot. Take lots of shots and hope something works.

I wanted to mention when I posted that this was taken using slightly oblique brightfield illumination... nothing fancy.