Week Four Sightings

The above photo is a seed shrimp that is known as an Ostracod according to Dr. McFarland. I saw five of these this week scattered throughout my aquarium. It took several photos before I found one that was semi-desent looking. They are extremely quick and agile when moving around in the water, and they always appear to be feeding.






The photo above is an amoeba that appeared to have constantly moving cilia around the entire edge of it. It also moved as a whole very slowly and had what appeared to be visible internal organelles.

The above photo is a vorticella similar in appearance to the many I have seen in previous weeks. This one had two rotating parts unlike some I have seen which only have one. These are the most interesting organisms I have seen.

The next three photos below are of the largest organism in my aquarium. It is a snail which is a type of gastropod. I was able to clearly see it with my naked eye and the entire organism did not even fit into the entire field of view on the four times magnification. The first phot shows most of the shell of the snell and what Dr. McFarland believes to be feces coming out of the hind quarters. The second photo shows quite a bit of the actual body while it appeared to be burrowing into the muck in the bottom of the aquarium. The third photo shows about half of the body and part of the shell, and I believe part of the head can be seen as well. This snail must have hatched from an egg sometime in the last week because I have not seen it or any evidence of it (Feces, etc) until this week.

The two photos below are of different portions of the largest anelid I have seen to date. I had to try to photo it in sequence on the ten times magnification because its internal parts were not visible on a lower magnification. It was slow moving and appeared to be trying to hide from the light. It also appeared to have no true front or back end since neither end looked any different. I found it near the top of plant A.

The video below is of a much smaller anelid that appears to be trapped in whatever type of algae like organism it is that appears to be surrounding it. The worm struggles fairly violently for most of the video but Dr. McFarland said that it is characteristic behavior of most small anelids.

Additional Sightings:

I began viewing my microaquariumin in the bottom left-hand corner and scrolled across and moved up a slight bit after I had reached the other side. I saw several sea urchin look-alike amoebas within the plants. Near the bottom right corner I saw an inch worm type organism that was transparent and appeared to be able to contract its body. Just above the muck in the center of the aquarium I observed a creature I have not seen up until now that Dr. McFarland identified as a Euplote. They have a moving cilia-like organ on their anterior end that looks a lot like the ones on Vorticella. They also have many visible colors within their main body and appear to have two antenna on their posterior side. I took pictures but was not able to upload them on the website. I next saw another organism new to my aquarium that Dr. McFarland identified as a Cyclops. They are extremely quick, segmented organisms that look similar to a crawdad. They have tiny hairs covering most of their body and two large antennas on one end. I took a photo of this organism but was unable to upload it on the website. After I was done observing I added more water to the aquarium.

Week Three Observations

The picture above is a rotifer that I was able to zoom in very clearly on with the ten times magnification. The wagging tail-like appendage on the rear of the organism was very interesting to watch. It used the appendage to propel itself through the water.

The above picture is a Gastrotricha this organism was hard to get a picture of because it was crawling around on the piece of debris in the picture very quickly. It appears to have spikes on its back. The source I got the name of this organism from was:

Pennak, Robert W. Fresh-Water Invertebrates of the United States: Protozoa to

Mollusca . Figure 7. New York. John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 1989.

The above picture is also an organism known as a Gastrotricha. This one also moved extremely quickly and was hard to photograph. The one in this photo is a different species from the previous picture. Dr. McFarland helped me identify this Gastrotricha.

The above photo is an cyanobacteria known as Calothrix parietina. This cyanobacteria was difficult to recognize because there are many similar looking species in the Calothrix genus. It is interesting to me that it appears to be many organisms, but it actually is several individual cyanobacteria clumped together. The source for this was:

Forest, Herman Silva. Handbook of Algae. Figure 680. Knoxville. University of Tennessee Press. 1954.

The picture above is a type of algae different looking than any other I had ever seen. With the help of Dr. McFarland, I identified it as Coleochaete irregularis. It had cyanobacteria floating inside of it as well. The source for the genus and species name came from:

Forest, Herman Silva. Handbook of Algae. Figure 86. Knoxville. The University of Tennessee Press. 1954.

The above picture is a closeup shot on forty-times zoom of one of the many lacrimaria I viewed in all areas I checked in my aquarium. I must have seen at least twenty-five of these organisms. I knew the name of this organism from past experience.

The picture above is a slight shot of an anelid. The majority of this organism was hiding out in the plants. It is the second largest motile organism I have seen in my aquarium behind a huge midge that was almost visible with the naked eye. I identified the genus name of this organism as a Aeolosoma with the help of the book:

Pennak, Robert W. Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States. New York. Ronald Press Company. 1953.

The video above is two amoebas with many different multicolored organisms floating within them. The amoeba was inside an air bubble. The video was shot at forty-times magnification. This was located at almost dead center within my aquarium. Dr. McFarland helped me identify them as amoebas.

The above video is another amoeba that can be seen in the video moving slowly like a gelatinous blob. The vacuoles and some other faint cellular organs can be seen within it. It appears to engulf anything smaller than it as it slowly moves over it. This video was shot on a high magnification as well at forty-times. Dr. McFarland identified the organism as an amoeba.

Additional Sightings:

I started viewing my aquarium on ten-times zoom in the lower left-hand corner. As I scanned across I continually saw lacrimaria with their long, extendable, suction cup like body parts. I continually saw rotifera and many swarms of small black dots in clear areas of water. Even on a high zoom I could not really tell what these organisms were. The next interesting organism i saw that I did not take a picture or video of was the insect larva known as a midge. The size of this translucent, worm-like insect larva was tremendous. I could even see what appeared to be a gigestive system within it on the ten times zoom. The last interesting thing I saw was more of the star-shaped amoebas I saw last week that look like sea urchins. After viewing my aquarium I added more distilled water to it, but I did not add any food.