Week 5

As a note, I missed the lab covering Units 17 & 18. I will be making those up this week with Michelle.

Onto week 5: I was only able to stop in for a short time this week, due to an upper respiratory bug. I didn't want to share with everyone using the computer, so I did not take any pictures.

This week saw a rise in the population of dileptus. They had seemed to have died off in week 4; however, I saw plenty of them this week. It may have something to do with the decline in the number of seed shrimp; I saw more dead seed shrimp than live ones this week.

I continued to see a good number of lecane rotifers. I could not find, however, either the philodina rotifer or the cyclopses. I did see some incredibly tiny creatures moving in the water; however, they were so small that I could not identify them, since they appeared clear. My guess would be that these would be bacteria.

I also saw an abundance of diatoms; previously, I had thought these small specks were merely debris. However, I saw once again an interesting arrangement of them like I did last week. This picture dates to week 4, but has not been published before.



After observing these diatoms, I was overcome by a terrible coughing fit, and I chose to leave the lab in order to prevent anyone else getting sick!

Week 4

So, this is a little late, mostly because I've been incredibly sick and unable to get out of bed for the past week.

Week 4 involved taking more pictures and finally identifying the creatures in my MicroAquarium.

In my last post, I had given all the creatures I observed affectionate pet names until such a time as I could properly identify them. I will now do so.

Sugar Pies= Lecane rotifers (Van Egmond, Wim. "Rotifers." Microscopy UK. 1995: On-View Ltd. Web. http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/wimsmall/rotidr.html)

Honey Bun= I could not find it again, so I could not identify it.

Kitty-Cat= Seed Shrimp (Thorp & Covich. Ecology and Classification of North American Freshwater Invertebrates. 1991: Academic Press, San Diego. Page 695.)

Puppy Wuppy= Dileptus (Patterson, D.J. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa. 1992: Marison Publishing, Washington D.C. Page 135.)

Now, we get to the fun part: pictures!

As a note, it seemed that during week 4, the majority of the Dileptus died off, probably eaten by the seed shrimp, who were thriving.



Squishy= Just part of a bladderwort, one of the plants in the Micro-Aquarium.

Wiggles= Nematode (Smith, Douglas G. Pennak's Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States, Fourth Edition. 2001: John Wiley & Sons, New York. Page 193.)

This first picture is of the only Dilpetus I could find. ---->




The second picture is of a new type of creature, called a Cyclops. (Smith, Douglas G. Pennak's Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States, Fourth Edition. 2001: John Wiley & Sons, New York. Page 490.)

<------


The third picture is one of the many lacane rotifers I saw.
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<---- Here's a Nematode



This is another new creature, a Philodina rotifer. (Pennak. Fresh Water Invertebrates of the United States, Third Edition. 1989: John Wiley & Sons, New York. Page 172.) -------->










<----- That's a seed shrimp.




That concludes my observations and pictures for week 4.

Week 3

I went and took pictures this past week, and I caught a really cool video of some creature dividing in two, which I will now post. :)

This first one is one of many similar creatures I saw. As with all of these photos, I will not be able to give you scientific names until I go back this week and look up the names. Thus, I will give affectionate pet names to each until I can further enlighten you. These are Sugar-Pies.

This next creature, the large bulbous creature on the left of the stem, I dub Honey-Bun. The one on the other side shall be called Squishy.








This long, worm-like creature is called Wiggles.










I named this type of creature Kitty-Cat.








This brown creature here is Puppy-
Wuppy.







The video I took is of a Puppy-Wuppy dividing into two Puppy-Wuppies. Enjoy! I will return next week with real names for these creatures, and more pictures!