Water Mite (Arrenurus genus)

Adrian · Post by **Adrian** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 9:59 am

hahahahah so alcohol has a use afterall!!

excellent photographs.

puzzledpaul · Post by **puzzledpaul** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 5:53 pm

<< gradually added some alcoholic beverage >>

Which sort - just out of interest ... was considering doing some research / testing

pp

Cyclops · Post by **Cyclops** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 8:54 am

wow fantastic images!

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 10:30 am

pp:

Which sort - just out of interest ...

Well, if you're really curious

, it's a German beverage called Oldesloer.

Craig Gerard · Post by **Craig Gerard** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:06 pm

Charlie,

The images in this thread are not displaying

* Later note: Now they are displaying

Craig

Planapo · Post by **Planapo** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 5:22 pm

it's a German beverage called Oldesloer

Charlie,

Hah!

I hadn't seen that before. Sounds like you had made that mite drunk with Korn or Doppelkorn that was destilled in my neck of the woods!
Cool! Is our Korn really shipped the whole way to Seattle and can be bought there?

Anyway, clever choice Korn that is. Otherwise it could have easily led to the false impression of tannin-brown waters of a peat-bog habitat, if you had used Jägermeister instead.

--Betty

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 5:59 pm

Betty,

It was a gift from an exchange student that had stayed with us. She gave it to my daughter and wife when they later visited her at home in Brunsbüttel.

discomorphella · Post by **discomorphella** » Sun Jan 15, 2012 12:21 pm

Hi Charlie

Beautiful shot. I really like the combined DF transillumination with the overhead light. I was wondering if there were any anesthetics for mites besides booze, so I checked through my copy of "Biological Techniques" by Jens Knudsen (which can be summarized with the phrase "biology is the art of killing with finesse") and also "Ecology and Classification of North American Freshwater Invertebrates" (J. Thorp and A. Covich, eds.) and "Fresh-water Invertebrates of the United States, 3rd ed" (Pennak) and nobody mentions narcotizing agents for water mites. Plenty of techniques for killing and perserving and many include ethanol. It seems that you can preserve them well with a mix of acetic acid, glycerin, alcohol and water, or perhaps PVLG as well. If you're planning on keeping your mites around for more pictures the mixture of
glycerin : water : glacial acetic acid : alcohol (2:3:2:1) is one formula. You could probably use isopropyl alcohol instead of ethanol in the mix with no issues.

David

abpho · Post by **abpho** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:14 am

Great work. Putting that extra effort in really pays off.