This is the second in the series of images of some of the organisms found in just a few drops of water collected from a pond in a disused quarry on the edge of the moors in Weardale.
This is a desmid - probably a species of Cosmarium. Desmids are typically constricted in the centre of the cell to form two mirror-image halves.
These are single-celled, photosynthetic algae that often have a patterned cell wall that's ...
.... most clearly visible after the cell has died and lost its chlorophyll.
This appears to be one half of a desmid that has broken at the bridge joining the two halves (known as the isthmus), revealing the fractured hole.
Coming next: Dinoflagellates
What magnification was used here?
ReplyDeleteThe cell wall pattern reminds me of some old-fashioned glass candy jars that some of my various senior female relatives have possessed . . .
ReplyDeleteWow... quite spectacular!
ReplyDeleteHi Frank, the microscope magnification was x400 (x10 eyepiece,x40 objective). The desmid is about 70 thousanths of a millimetre in diameter.
ReplyDeleteHi Jennifer, they'd make great glass scultures, wouldn't they? Have you seen Luke Jerram's glass models of bacteria and viruses at http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/sep/02/swine-flu-sculpure-art-disease?picture=352448474
ReplyDeleteHi Kristin, I could spend hours looking at these organisms...
ReplyDelete