Vorticella stalks, contracted

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 11:28 pm

Here are a couple of shots of the stalks of Vorticella.The stalks contains a contractile fibril called a myoneme. When the Vorticella is startled the myoneme contracts very rapidly, compressing the stalk into a spring shape.

These were taken with the 60/1.40 Plan Apo and electronic flash. With the very shallow DOF the appearance is like a cross-section. Once compressed they extend out more slowly, but to get a picture you still need to work fast to compose the shot, focus and shoot.

mtuell · Post by **mtuell** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 11:53 pm

Brilliant as always, Charles!

That 60x is my favorite objective, if I'm trying to get down in there. Forget about darkfield, though! Everything is brightfield at 1.4!

Mike

JH · Post by JH » Sun Oct 23, 2016 1:23 am

Thanks for posting, very interesting (and nice pictures as always).
Regards Jörgen

zzffnn · Post by **zzffnn** » Sun Oct 23, 2016 9:43 am

Awe-inspiring captures of a very fast/difficult organism! Thank you for sharing.

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Sun Oct 23, 2016 10:37 am

Very nice

rnabholz · Post by **rnabholz** » Sun Oct 23, 2016 7:18 pm

Just overcoming the challenge of shooting such a quick moving subject is remarkable, making such artful images is amazing.

Well done Charles

Rod

NicoVB · Post by **NicoVB** » Sun Oct 23, 2016 8:02 pm

No words...

_Michal_ · Post by **_Michal_** » Mon Oct 24, 2016 7:42 am

Fantastic...

carlos.uruguay · Post by **carlos.uruguay** » Mon Oct 24, 2016 8:25 am

Absolutely brilliant! As usual

Sumguy01 · Post by **Sumguy01** » Mon Oct 24, 2016 9:18 pm

Very good.
Great detail.
Thanks for sharing.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Tue Oct 25, 2016 5:07 pm

Thanks all!

According to Wikipedia, a myoneme "consists of a series of protein filaments that shorten rapidly upon exposure to calcium". Whenever I see something like that it impresses me how much can be learned by studying the seemingly simple "mechanisms" in basic creatures like this.