SpongeBobs anchestors

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

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ralfwagner
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SpongeBobs anchestors

Post by ralfwagner »

Hello,


this time I'd like to show some shots of the protist Salpingoeca. "My" Salpingoecas were attached to the stem of a Vorticella, but you can find them on other substrates like algae, too. In bright-field the contrast was only poor, but phase-contrast revealed some details:

Salpingoeca consists of a lorica with the cellbody inside and on top of the cellbody there is a weir, a kind of funnel, with a single, long flagellum in the middle. They are attached to the Vorticella via a short stem.

Image

Image

While studying the literature about Salpingoeca I found it interesting to read that S. belongs to the class of Choanoflagellatas. Choanoflagellatas are related to Choanocytes. These Choanocytes are found in all sponges and look and work like a Salpingoeca; especially the system weir - flagellum is very similar. Choanocytes in a sponge are doing the job of water-filtering for food, e.g. plankton, bacteria and detritus (organic waste).

Have fun!

Bruce Williams
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Post by Bruce Williams »

An informative and well illustrated posting Ralf - thanks. That Salpingoeco in the first pic has chosen an curious place to attach - bet "he" gets a fun ride when the Vorticella contracts :lol:

Bruce

Charles Krebs
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Post by Charles Krebs »

Ralf,
Very nice! You have really obtained superb detail. What was the equipment used on the second image?

ralfwagner
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Post by ralfwagner »

Hello Bruce and Charles,

thanks for your compliments.

@Bruce: Indeed I could watch several fun rides of that Salping. Under normal conditions a thin layer of water is positiv, but in this particular case the Vorticellas contracted more often the thinner the layer became and this made it more difficult to get a good picture. However, the Salpings stayed fixed at their original positions during the fun rides! It has been a really exiting shooting session.

@Charles: Both pictures were shot with a Canon A85 digicam through the eyepiece and the objective was a Zeiss 40x/0.75 Plan Neofluar Ph2. The second pic was shot with slight digital-zoom.

beetleman
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Post by beetleman »

Excellent photos Ralf. I also like all the info you supply with your photos. I sure learn a lot (I just have to try and keep it in the file system). :roll:
Take Nothing but Pictures--Leave Nothing but Footprints.
Doug Breda

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