Frontonia - It's Life and Death

billporter1456 · Post by **billporter1456** » Sun Apr 27, 2014 8:00 pm

Cell death due to the evaporation of the water on a microscope slide is a phenomenon seen by just about everyone who has spent serious time observing the creatures in a drop of pond water. One function of the cell that can continue to the very end is the contraction of the contractile vacuole. This video shows a vacuole contracting after the cell has completely ruptured. The organism is a Frontonia, a large ciliate found in my local pond. Brightfield, darkfield, and phase contrast illumination is used. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYR0YtVo7ac

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Apr 27, 2014 9:52 pm

Masterful timing on the sound track!

--Rik

billporter1456 · Post by **billporter1456** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 2:59 am

rjlittlefield wrote:Masterful timing on the sound track!

--Rik

Thanks, Rik! I just kept trying different free YouTube soundtracks until I found one that ended nicely with the end of the video.

I must confess to serial protist murder as I've seen many of them expire due to evaporation of the water under the cover slip. With this Frontonia, its end seemed dramatic enough to justify doing a video.

Bill

piermicro · Post by **piermicro** » Tue Apr 29, 2014 10:56 am

Nice.