Mystery Bug of the Month

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Mystery Bug of the Month

MAY-05

Think pink. . . . . Designer bugs just in time for spring!

OK, no, this is not an easter egg coloring contest or even a tie dyed higher life forms. You can see for your own eyes the little critter under the microscope.

They look like little Litonotus and they move around really fast. They were the only higher life forms in the entire sample that were pink. There were many free swimming ciliates, stalked ciliates and rotifers. None were pink except for these little guys.

We do have videos of this, but they are too large to load on a website. They are one megabyte for each second. Some of the videos were 20-30 seconds, so you can see how big the files would get. You may contact us for copies of the videos if you are interested.

These photomicrographs were taken from a wastewater sample. Most of the objectives used were 100x, 400x and 1000x.

Come take a closer look at the amazing world under the microscope! Can you guess what it is? Scroll down slowly and take a closer look at some of the moving parts on these critters.

Ok this is actually two organisms, a rotifer is behind our mystery bug, note the size comparison. It looks like our mystery bug is eating the rotifer with his hairy jaws for lunch! this was taken at 1000x	1000x
	Anterior apex often curves over the peristome 1000x
Large contractile vacuole is present at the posterior end.
Dorsal ridges at the anterior end are very distinctive.

Oral apparatus along left edge winding onto ventral surface 400x	400x notice how it twists and turns and changes shape?
Remember, even though it is only a drop of water and seems flat on the slide, they are 3-D, you might need to focus in and out on your microscope Another thing too, when organisms are quite large, you definitely have to focus in and out to see the various parts at different levels without actually flattening or killing the organism and distorting all the parts.	400x really twisting here to fit between the floc structures
	1000x two engaged in conjugation!

400x still entangled

Finally finished the job!

Ok, did you figure it out? It is a Blepharisma or a free swimming ciliate.

ok, there are too many species and I am not a biologist, so we leave that up to you to identify the different species represented if you really want to get technical!

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Ciliophora
Class Ciliatea
Subclass Spirotricha
Order Heterotrichida
Suborder Heterotrichina
Family Spirostomidae
Genus Blepharisma

Different types of Blepharisma
B. seculum
B. lateritium
B. japonicum
B. americanum
var. trinodatum
μm

B. americanum
var. americanum
Size varies from medium (50 um long) to very large (1 mm long)

Blepharisma eat some of the smaller ciliates and euglena or flagellates and have been noted to be cannibals. They can be naturally pigmented pale to dark pink, red, or purple

Would you like to see more of the first Mystery Bug- videos and photos

Want to see more of the Mystery Bug- videos and photos

Mystery Bug 9-04 Mystery Filament of the Month 9-04 Mystery Filament of the Month 10-04

Mystery Bug 10-04 Mystery Bug-11-04 Mystery Bug-12-04 Mystery Bug-1-05

Mystery Bug-2-05 Mystery Bug-3-05 Mystery Bug-4-05 Mystery Bug-5-05

Mystery Bug-6-05 Mystery Bug-7-05 Mystery Bug-8-05

Mystery Bug-9-05 Mystery Bug-10-05 Mystery Bug-11-05 Mystery Bug-12-05

Mystery Bug 1-06 Mystery Bug 2-06 Mystery Bug 3-06

Mystery Bug 4-06   Mystery Bug 5-06 Mystery Bug 6-06

Mystery Bug 8-06 II   Mystery Bug 9-06 II Mystery Bug 10-06

Mystery Bug 11-06    Mystery Bug 12-06

Mystery Bug 1-07 and links to all of 2007 Mystery Bugs pages

Stay tuned each month

More to come soon!

Enlargements: If you liked these pictures and want to see additional microorganisms check out the pages below.

Amoeba

Flagellates

Free Swimming Ciliates

Eating under the microscope- Dinner time!

What if you do not have a lab or microscope onsite that is capable of performing an analyses of your system?

Find out how Environmental Leverage's lab can perform an analyses of your biomass in your system and make recommendation on how to improve your system.

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