Botany 111: Week 3

So this post is a bit late in coming since I've had to identify the organisms in photos. It was really neat being able to hook the microscope up to the computer and watch it on the computer screen rather then straining to see through the microscope lens. The highlight of the experience was watching what I originally thought was a strand of green algae. I zoomed in on it to see if I could identify it, then realized it was moving. Over a period of about 5 minutes I watched the strand of green "beads" separate into what turned out to be an amoeba. The amoeba was ingesting part of the cyanobacterium filament. I was lucky enough to get a sequence of pictures documenting the phenomenon (See figures 3-10). Epalxella (see fig 11) was zooming around in the aquarium and since it moves very fast the picture is a bit blurry. If you look carefully you can just see the identifying "hook" on it (tip of the arrow). One of the most distinct was the beautiful golden box-shaped diatom Fragilaria (see fig 1).

Figure 1. A Colonial Diatom. Reference used to identify organism: The Algae of Illinois. by Lewis Hanford Tiffany and Max Edwin Britton. Pg 232.

Figure 2. Paranema. Reference used to identify organism: D.J. Patterson. Free-living Freshwater Protozoa. A Colour Guide.

Figure 3. Amoeba ingesting cyanobacteria.

Figure 4. Amoeba ingesting cyanobacteria. Reference used to identify organism (the same organism is in figures 3-10): Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa.
A Colour Guide by D.J. Patterson.

Figure 5. Amoeba. Note the movement of the green "beads" from a straight line to curved after being ingested.

Figure 6. Note how Amoeba is starting to separate from the Cyanobacteria strand.

Figure 7. The organism has separated and is moving away.

Figure 8.

Figure 9.

Figure 10.

Figure. 11. Epalxella. Reference used to identify organism: D.J. Patterson. Free-living Freshwater Protozoa. A Colour Guide. The two other dots are algae.