MicroAquarium Week 3

It has been 3 weeks of looking at our MicroAquariums under the microscope. Dr. McFarland has continued to identify many organisms. It has been really cool to see new organisms and what their functions are. Also it is cool to see previous identified organisms and try to name them myself. It is really interesting even after week 3 to see the habits and interactions of the organisms.

One of the new organisms identified by Dr. McFarland was called Litonotus sp. Litonotus sp have membranes that are flattened, predatory or scavenging ciliates. The mouth region is on the conuet anterior and lateral margain, under which may be seen some of the extrusomes (toxicysts) that are used in food capture (Patterson, 1992, fig 286, page 133).

Image: Litonotus sp.







Another organism identified by Dr. McFarland is Colpidium sp. Colpidium sp, this ciliate is often in large numbers in organically enriched and slightly anoxic sites. The mouth which lies below a slightly protruding anterior part of the body, incorporates ciliary organelles that are used to concentrate suspended particles and deliver them for packaging into food vacuoles. The large empty looking vacuole near the centre of the cell is the contractile vacuole (Patterson, 1992, fig 337, p 151).

Image: Colpidium sp.










Another organism that was identified by Dr. McFarland was a Stentor sp. A Stentor attaches to the substrates by the means of a hold fast, and when relaxed and feeding, they have a trumpet shape. Feeding is achieved by the membranelles which run around the flattened anterior end of the cell, i.e. the adoral zone of the membranelles. The contractile vacuole lies adjacent to the cytosome (Patterson, 1992, fig 214, p 107).

Image: Stentor sp.















Dr. McFarland also identified an organism called Limnias sp. Limnias sp- Tube chitinoid, often opaqueand more or less covered with debri, corona of two distinct lobes, or nearly circular; dorsal anterior short to long (Pennak, 1953, figure J, p 218).

As you watch the video you should notice that Limnias sp. goes in a circular motion and takes in what it wants and pushes the stuff it does not want away.


Image and Video both Limnias sp.

Another organism identified by Dr. McFarland was an Unknown Rotifer sp. Rotifers are metazoa and are often in the same size range as ciliates, with which they may compete. Rotifers have anterior aggregates of cilia, used in the collection of food; the food is the passed into the gut via two stout grinding plates called Mastax. Most roifers have a posterior (Patterson, 1992, fig 15, p 27).

Image: Uknown Rofiter sp.