Week Four

Alright! Final post. So during my past few observations there has been this unidentified organism swimming around my aquarium and I found out what it was thanks to a fellow observer. It's a Halteria!

Spirotrichea: Oligotrichia: Oligotrichida: Halteriidae. Family & Genus: Circumferential paratene (cirrus-like "bristles") usually polykinetid; body small, rounded.Genus: Spherical or broadly fusiform; anterior border bears conspicuous adoral zone. Body circular or globular; AZM is composed of two sets membranelles; longer set emerges from the buccal cavity and wind around the apex of the cell; long, stiff cilia present equatorially; saltatorial locomotion quite common.

Information from: Freeliving Freshwater Protozoa By: D.J. Patterson

- Another find is an amoeba. It is a genus of protozoa and moves by means of pseudopods. It is unicellular. There are several of these through out my aquarium and are found attached to the glass. The are transparent and slow moving.

Information from: http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artsep01/amoeba.html

- One other new thing of interst is another diatom recognition: the filamentus diatom, melosira which was a golden color and lengthy.

- Something I couldn't identify if this. It was flipping about wildly through out the water near the light green plant (please excuse the poor drawing):

Week Three

* Random Observations: The light green plant is still growing. Tiny green fibers generating from the light green plant are filing up much of the unoccupied water. Also, I havent really spotted to many new or interesting things.

I did however figure out what specific diatom the last image was! It is a Anomoeoneis Diatom. Valves lanceolate to elliptical-lanceolate with rostrate to sub-capitate (rarely capitate) ends. Striae distinctly punctate. Hyaline areas on either side of the axial area. Distal raphe ends clearly deflected to one side. (Information from Freeliving Freshwater Protozoa By: D.J. Patterson Page: 243)


New findings:

Oscillatoria:

Belonging to kingdom Monera, it is a prokaryote. Named for it oscilation in movement. When I viewed it under the microscope it was slowly moving back and forth. I didn't think much of it, I just thought it was part of the plant slowly moving with the water until Mr. McFarland told me what it was. It's brown-green in color and gets it's energy from light. It reproduces by fragmentation.

Information from: The Algae of Illinois By: Lewis Hanford Page: 343 (Plate 93)

Week Two

With the help of Dr. McFarland I was able to identify a bunch of interseting things I had over looked:


In the soil:

- Several nematodes appeared. The are the most numerous multicellular organisms on earth and belong to the Phylum Nemata. The nematodes I saw were feeding on both bacteria as well as other nematodes. I was unable to get a detailed enough view of the actual nematodes so I can't determine what species they were.











In the unoccupied water:

- Cyanobacteria (Blue-Green Algae). Found just outside of the soil it belongs to a phylum of bacteria and obtain their food through photosynthesis. The are an important primary porducer in many areas of large bodies of water and are also a key componet to the nitrogen cycle.



Information from:

Freshwater Algae: The Microscopic World Explored pages 397-398, Botany text book

- There was also and assortment of diatoms. They are a major group of eukaryotic algae and from what I saw are unicellular. The are producers and have a unique cell wall composed of silica. There are over 200 genera of diatoms. Here are some of the ones I spotted...

Information:

Freeliving Freshwater Protozoa
By: D.J. Patterson
Page 125