Some Technical Advice

[Sharnbrook]

I have been observing from the sidelines for some time, but have only recently sourced a serious microscope, a 2nd-hand Meiji ML 2000, which appears to be in good order, with 4, 10, 40 and 100x SM Plan eyepieces, and I am eager to try it out, and learn how to use it properly.

The other day, I was eating a dried fig, which tasted somewhat 'ordinary'. I sliced it open, and inspected it under a low power Olympus VE-3 that I also have. (A very useful little scope.) Under the VE-3, I saw that there were many small white 'insects', with 8 legs and obvious mouth-parts. They look not unlike a small tick, and at an approximate guess were between 0.5 and 0.8mm long.

I would like to photograph one or two, in an effort to: a) Try my hand at micrography, and b) to establish the identity. (A web search suggests Carpoglpyhus lactis L. (Acarina: Carpoglyphidae) could be the subject, but I am no Entomologist/Zoologist)

I have collected a few, and immersed them in alcohol to kill/subdue them in order to do a stack. They either appear to "melt", and become unrecognisable, to be squashed by the cover slip, or to dry out quite quickly, and become virtually unrecognisable, at least to my untrained eye.

Can anyone give me quick and easy instructions for preparing a slide to preserve them for the purposes of photographing them for ID. I have a reasonable range of equipment, (Canon 7D, 40D, macro lenses, reversing rings, flash, bellows, lighting etc etc) and am keen to become adequately proficient in its use. I am also very aware that there is no quick and easy path to mastering this art, but putting me on the right path would be much appreciated.

I should be most grateful for any helpful tips.

[NikonUser]

There is a lot of info on slide making on the web.
A Google of 'mite slide making' produced this
http://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/wh ... aining.pdf

Seems overly complex; basically place dead mite (after killing in alcohol) in a very weak glycerine solution, something like 10% alcohol, 85% water, and 5% glycerine.
Leave in open air to evaporate the water and alcohol. After a few days (or less) you will have a mite in pure glycerine. Then place it on a slide with spacers between slide and cover glass. Spacers prevent the mite being squashed.
Broken coverslips work OK as spacers.
If you place mites directly into pure glycerine they are like to shrink and deform as the glycerine removes the water/alcohol from within the body. Maybe worth trying if mites have a tough exoskeleton.

[Sharnbrook]

Thanks NikonUser, as you say, it looks overly complex, but I shall try your short-cut method. I have some Glycerine and alcohol, and water shouldn't be too difficult... I had tried searching this site, but without a great deal of success. When in doubt, ask someone who knows.

[Olympusman]

Probably larvae from Fig Wasps. When I lived in Phoenix, Arizona I had two large fig trees in my backyard, which I found to be nuisances. They dropped their fruit and the rotting fruit attracted drosophila who got blind drunk on the alcohol of the rotting fruit. Some friends of ours admired the trees and asked if they could harvet the fruit. Then they complained that the figs were infected by worms, these being the Fig Wasp larvae. There is an opening at the base of the fruit through which the wasps deposit their eggs.
I eventually chopped both trees down and replaced them with a Palo Verde which grew to massive size in only two years since I spoiled it by over-watering with the runoff from one of our evaporative coolers.

Mike