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Mystery Bug of the Month

April-05

Macroinvertebrates. . . . .

OK, no, this is not a monster from a B-rated film although it can look pretty scary to your eyes under the microscope.

They look like little shrimp and they move around really fast. Actually, you can see them swimming in the wastewater or clarifier with your naked eye, especially in a sample bottle. They are very large, they do not want to get captured in the pipette and jump around on the slide, so cover them up quick.

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 bristle worm next to our mystery bug, note the size comparison. It looks like our mystery bug is eating the bristle worm for lunch! this was taken at 40x	100x
	400x notice the eyespot


	Cephalothorax - ventral view The cephalosome is a shield over the head and some thoracic segments distinguishes the free living forms.
Antenna and antennule and dark reddish eyespot	probably Acanthocyclops vernalis
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.
Dark center is Eyespot	Egg sacs
Side view with egg sacs and many bristle worms also
	The twin egg-sacs, when present, are the main distinguishing feature of the Cyclopoidea.

Dorsal view

Ok, did you figure it out?

It is a Copepod or more precisely

a Cyclops

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

More on Copepods

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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