Eggs on duckweed mystery. Part II

[Charles Krebs]

The water sample these came from had about five clusters of eggs that all looked very much the same. So I had a couple pictures I was going to post the other day as the "hatchlings" but then I noticed that in my container two different species of Chironomids had hatched from the egg masses. So I placed the eggs I had photographed and posted in Part I into a small container by themselves and watched them. Here are a few shots of those eggs hatching out. The larva emerged from the eggs but stayed inside the gelatinous mass for at least 12 hours or so. Then some worked their way to one end and seemed to "chew" their way out (seen clearly in the middle image).

[bernhardinho]

Hi Charles

this is incredible stuff, I never had the pleasure to watch this nor see pics of it.

Thank you so much!!


Bernhard

[Charles Krebs]

Thanks Bernhard.

My timing was lucky. It's always nice to see what emerges when you find eggs like this, but I seldom have the patience to follow it through.

As I mentioned, there were two species of Chironomids that had hatched from the egg masses in my samples. A preliminary difference I observed was that one variety (the one pictured here) had the eggs attached along the edge of a duckweed petal. The other egg masses were more amorphous, were attached to the small roots that hang down from the duckweed petals, and contained larger numbers of eggs. But I only found about 5 bunches of eggs so I don't know if there is any validity to this anecdotal observation.

[rjlittlefield]

Wow! Informative, technically superb, and aesthetically beautiful, all in one go. The colors and lighting in #3 are awesome.

Do you happen to know if these critters have the giant chromosomes illustrated so well by Olivier here?

--Rik