I have been looking at pond water and have come across some protozoans I have never seen before.
The first is Pleuronema, it looks like a paramecium but I couldn’t figure out what the “flagella” were. Turns out they aren’t flagella, Pleuronema fishes for food using a net of cilia. Rather interesting little beastie, I made a video of it.
Here is a picture of the other beastie I found, a Loxophyllum, it glides in a most beautiful way. It’s quite large. The pictures below were taken using a 20X objective whereas the video was taken using 40X. I wasn’t able to video the Loxophyllum because it was quite swift as well as elegant.
Comments on: "Less common protozoans" (3)
Nize! As a 1950’s vintage Vickers compound scope, I learn much from your posts (since 2005). KJ
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These are wonderful! Great video of the Pleuronema, it’s great when they stay still long enough to stay in view 🙂
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Pleuronema are fairly co-operative, Unlike a rather beautiful worm I saw today and completely failed to photograph!
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