Nematoda

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 2:37 am

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 7:55 am

Beautiful details!

Rogelio

pwnell · Post by **pwnell** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 11:41 am

These are awesome. How did you get the worm to stay still? They always look like they are in epileptic shock when I try to photograph them.

arturoag75 · Post by **arturoag75** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 12:56 pm

Superb details on this set

Sumguy01 · Post by **Sumguy01** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 8:53 pm

Amazing detail.
Thanks for sharing.
You have great skills

Marek Mis · Post by **Marek Mis** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:53 pm

The technical quality of these images is incredible and very impressive !

Marek

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Thu Jan 09, 2014 6:05 am

Thank you for your comments

darwin · Post by **darwin** » Fri Jan 10, 2014 4:13 pm

pwnell wrote:These are awesome. How did you get the worm to stay still? They always look like they are in epileptic shock when I try to photograph them.

Well, it's quite easy. I work on these litte creatures so I do it every day. Nematodes are really everywhere. You can extract them easily from any substrate. The extraction goes as follows:

You take a kind of pan to hold some water and put a mesh on it which is not touching the bottom of the pan. Put tissues or toilet paper on the mesh and then put your substrate you want on it. Add water until the tissue or toilet paper is just wet (not to much water because the nematodes go to the water. Let it, after a few hours the first nematodes are in the water. Remove the mesh from the pan. Sieve the water in the pan with a very fine sieve (about 40 µm mesh size) and observe under a stereomicroscope (transmitted light). Pick them with a fine needle (litte bit tricky the first time) and put them in a small drop on a microscope slide. Heat the drop with a lighter until the nematode lays still. Don't heat to long or all the water will evaporate. Then put a cover glass on it, seal it with nale polish and you can start to take pictures. The nematode will lay still.

Dieter

carlos.uruguay · Post by **carlos.uruguay** » Fri Jan 10, 2014 5:08 pm

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Sat Jan 11, 2014 2:04 am

darwin interesting information. I just wait until it releases some nematode your moves.

darwin · Post by **darwin** » Sat Jan 11, 2014 4:52 am

Please, call me dieter

For those who are interested, I can take pictures of the material/ setup I use. I can help to identify them as well (for the free-living ones at least, exl dorylaimida, to difficult for me)

emsiem · Post by **emsiem** » Sat Jan 11, 2014 11:43 am

Beautiful photos!
And darwin thank you for instructions.

NileRed · Post by **NileRed** » Sun Jan 12, 2014 2:12 pm

Very cool!

Jacek, how did you mount that guy (water or)?

Roman

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Mon Jan 13, 2014 2:54 am

Thanks, I found them in a small lake mid-forest, quite often I manage to find them

darwin · Post by **darwin** » Mon Jan 13, 2014 3:34 am

Aha, it's a freshwater species. Might be Tobrilus sp. And I think mounting was indeed in water, that's how I do it for temporarily slides.