Amoeba pottery
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- Charles Krebs
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Amoeba pottery
The top is a "cross-eyed" stereo version.
I'll admit... there are some creatures I find in my water samples that are so common that I don't often give them a second look anymore. But the "shelled amoebas", as common as they are, nearly always get appreciative look. That these tiny blobs of protoplasm are able to produce such perfect "tests", of tremendous variety, is always a fascination.
This shot was taken with a Nikon 50/0.8 LU Plan. 395 image stack at 0.4 micron steps.
I'll admit... there are some creatures I find in my water samples that are so common that I don't often give them a second look anymore. But the "shelled amoebas", as common as they are, nearly always get appreciative look. That these tiny blobs of protoplasm are able to produce such perfect "tests", of tremendous variety, is always a fascination.
This shot was taken with a Nikon 50/0.8 LU Plan. 395 image stack at 0.4 micron steps.
Last edited by Charles Krebs on Mon Oct 16, 2017 9:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Really nice - and interesting stereo.
Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
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- carlos.uruguay
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Very interesting and excellent pictures!
Until not so long ago I did not even know this kind of amoeba existed that builds its own "house" from all kinds of collected microscopic material found in its environment. It's another surprising detail of how incredible the nature that surrounds us is organized. (I also heard that new amoeba are discovered relatively often. To make it official, they should be dried and their DNA subject to analysis....)
Until not so long ago I did not even know this kind of amoeba existed that builds its own "house" from all kinds of collected microscopic material found in its environment. It's another surprising detail of how incredible the nature that surrounds us is organized. (I also heard that new amoeba are discovered relatively often. To make it official, they should be dried and their DNA subject to analysis....)
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Amoeba test
I am always amazed that a single-cell organism with no brain can construct a test. Some glue them together and some, like Arcella, generate them. The other thing amazing about Arcella is that when it wants to flip over, it generates a gas bubble to change its buoyancy. Also, we can identify the species by the test.
Mike
Mike
Michael Reese Much FRMS EMS Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
- rjlittlefield
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- Charles Krebs
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- Charles Krebs
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The test was placed on a slide and allowed to dry (No cover slip involved). I surrounded the subject with a small cylinder made from a piece of a Lee Filter diffusion sheet. This cylinder was just large enough in diameter to allow the objective to be lowered down inside. I used two LED lights from the outside onto the exterior walls of the cylinder and varied the brightness and "shading" until I liked what I saw. This particular object has only about 1mm working distance so this does not work well for many subjects.micro_pix wrote:I'd love to know how the lighting was done.
Rik, I didn't notice that until after making the stereo version. The is a small indentation there... likely a small defect or damage, not a feature.rjlittlefield wrote:In the stereo I can see what looks like a small hole near the back of the test -- right side in these images, just above center. Is that a defect in this one test, or some general feature?--Rik