Photomicrography Two.

This very strange organism came to my attention during last summer (2002) when I noticed that on top of these hollow tubes there appeared to be a set of flagella busily wafting away in the water. The tubes are usually a brownish colour and can be anything from single tubes to five or more. I looked in Ward & Whipple fresh water biology second edition and eventually found what I was looking for. Rhipidodendron splendidum is a zoo flagellate and forms structures that can only be described as organ pipes, with a small biflagellate organism occupying only the very end of the tubular structure. The tubes can grow up to 300um in length. They are found in slightly acid waters.

Hedriocystis is another hard to find microbe usually hiding in some clump of detritus waiting for its next meal. It sits on the end of a stalk in a test with very slight arms protruding through its casing. The bar represents 20um.

These testate amoeboid organisms can be very easily overlooked even when there are plenty floating around in the water. This sample was collected from Speakmans pond in Epping Forest in late May. The organism consists of a spherical body with two sets of pseudopodia at opposite poles, which can be used for moving around and capturing prey. There is also a large yellowish oil droplet in the cell body. Diplophrys can be found in large conglomerations drifting in the water. They reproduce by splitting in to two or four separate cell bodies. This photograph was taken on a Carl Zeiss photomicroscope 111 with a X40 phase neofluar objective. The film used was 160 tungsten. The slides were scanned into Photoshop to sharpen up the detail ready for printing. The bar represents 10µm.

This cyanobacterium was found on the margins of Connaught waters in Epping Forest in late August. Aphanothece can be seen with the naked eye as a gelatinous mass from anything up to 3-4 centimetres across, floating on the surface of the water. It feels very rubbery and can take quite a lot of abuse before being broken up. When viewed under the microscope a small piece needs to be squashed flat under the cover slip (not an easy task). It quickly becomes clear that this is a solid mass of single cells with many of them dividing into two new cells, this division can be seen in photograph b.This cyanobacterium is very easy to keep and will last for many weeks in a north-facing window.

Anthophysa. This chrysomonad flagellate sits on the end of a stalk with numerous individuals waving their two flagella around trying to secure a meal in stagnant water. Again this organism can be easily over looked. The stalk can be of varying lengths but from the specimens that I have seen the stalk is always brown. The two flagella are of unequal length and only the larger of the two can be seen in the photograph.

This photograph is of a frogs egg cell showing cleavage.When the frog spawn first appears take some into the house and keep watch for a few days while the egg begins to develop. The egg should move through it's development fairly rapidly while indoors. I used an Olympus bellows with a Zuiko MC macro 20mm f3.5 lens, the flash was placed to one side. The whole development of the frog can be easily observed and is always intriguing to watch.

The above two photographs were taken on a Carl Zeiss photomicroscope 111 with a built in camera using a X40 phase objective. Haematococcus is a very common inhabitant of birdbaths and other small bodies of water. It can be found all the year round and can sometimes turn the water a blood red for many weeks during the early part of spring. I have had several Emails in the past from people who are worried that this microbe may poison the birds that visit their birdbaths. This microbe is quite harmless and should be left in the water to live its life out. Please do not pour bleach or anything else into the birdbaths, pouring bleach into the water will definitely cause harm to any bird life and anything else that may frequent the water.

 

This photograph was taken with a X63 planapo phase objective on a Zeiss photomicroscope 111. The bacteria are found on the epithelial cells of the mouth and are therefore quite easy to get hold of. For obvious reasons make sure that your hands and finger nails are clean before you scrape some cells from the lining of the mouth.

Introduction To Photomicrography