A euglyphid with a very wide aperture.
Uploaded for @jrf4834
The species is not well differentiated from A. intermedia and A. hemisphaerica.
The specimen was collected in the Mer Bleue Bog conservation area, air-dried on an adhesive disk and imaged in the scanning electron microscope at the Canadian Museum of Nature.
A shelled amoeba, with close views of the crenulated aperture.
Very very large. Not like anything I have ever seen or can find. Perhaps it is an animal? It really doesn’t look like one
MY GIRLFRIEND IS NAMED AFTER ONE OF THESE IM SO HAPPY
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Hydrozoa
Order: Leptothecata
Key morphological traits: tetramerous radial symmetry, transparent, tentacles radiating from bell, 4 oral arms surrounding mouth
Fun fact: entire colonies of polyps are covered by a tough yellow chitin secreted by the ectoderm called perisarc
Didymium aquatile is supposedly the only aquatic slime mold of this.. kind? Idk how to explain. Started growing on the side of my sample jar a day or so after collecting.
Trachelophyllum brachypharynx Levander, 1894
I found a population of this species in brackish water from the estuarine pond Pussy's Pond, an offshoot of Accabonac Harbor in the Town of East Hampton, New York. It measures 300 um in length. Except for its somewhat smaller size, my observation conforms perfectly to the description of Jang et. al. Size is often variable intraspecies. The lepidosomes forming a mucilagenous cortical surface layer are notoriously difficult to visualize in vivo but you can clearly see the roughened character of the cortex in my photos.
"Trachelophyllids prefer terrestrial and semiterrestrial habitats (Kahl 1930; Foissner 1984, 1994, 2005; Foissner et al. 2002), but some have also been found in freshwater (Foissner et al. 1995, 1999) and one species, Trachelophyllum brachypharynx Levander, 1894, was reported from saltwater (e.g., Levander 1894, 1901; Coats and Clamp 2009; Telesh et al. 2009)".
"Size about 380 × 40 μm in vivo, slightly contractile. Shape very narrowly fusiform, with a slightly to distinctly narrowed neck, gradually merging into a broadened trunk. Two ellipsoidal macronuclear nodules usually connected by a fine strand, with two to three broadly ellipsoidal micronuclei close to or attached to macronuclear nodules. Contractile vacuole terminal and comparatively small. Extrusomes filiform, slightly curved and with pointed ends, 30 µm long in vivo. On average, 24 ciliary rows, two anteriorly differentiated into an isostichad dikinetidal dorsal brush: row 1 composed of 40 dikinetids on average, row 2 of 33 dikinetids on average. Lepidosomes hat-shaped and about 4 × 3.7 µm in vivo". "Oral bulge rather conspicuous because distinctly set off from body proper; pin-shaped in extended specimens, while conical in contracted cells; not covered by lepidosomes".
Another marine Trachelophyllum species is Trachelophyllum apiculatum (Perty, 1852) Claparède & Lachmann, 1859. However this species is more flask shaped and has four macronuclear nodules.
Morphology, Ciliary Pattern and Molecular Phylogeny of Trachelophyllum brachypharynx Levander, 1894 (Litostomatea, Haptoria, Spathidiida) Seok Won JANG, Peter Vďačný, Shahed Uddin Ahmed Shazib and Mann Kyoon Shin. Acta Protozool. (2015) 54: 123–135
you enter the bathroom, expecting nothing unusual, but unknowingly, your bumhole is met with a pair of soulless eyes staring back at it.
as you start to sit down, you hear something slosh in the water beneath you.
you jump up, startled.
as you peer into the toilet bowl, you see him, the prince of wadda mooli himself.
you pay your respects and escort him outdoors–back to his kingdom
you then reclaim your porcelain throne
Collotheca species, possibly C. ornata, attached to the Elodea from fresh water Town Pond. Collotheca belongs to the rotifer class Monogononta, rotifers with only one ovary. These rotifers are sessile; they are either attached to each other forming a spherical colony, or attached individually to the substrate. Each rotifer secretes a gelatinous tube into which it withdraws when disturbed. Phase contrast Zeiss Photomicroscope III using Neofluar PH2 160.40 with Optovar set at x1.6 plus variable phone cropping. At one point, a little Menoidium decided to tempt fate and tease the rotifer by poking its infundibulum.
The absence of setae inserting between the lobes points to Collotheca ornata (thanks @shanesmicroscope ) in contrast to the similar species C. coronetta which has setae on the surfaces between the lobes (see illustration from Shiel and Plewka below).
https://www.plingfactory.de/Science/Atlas/KennkartenTiere/Rotifers/01RotEng/source/Collotheca%20ornata%20cornuta.html
Collotheca Harring, 1913
Class Rotatoria: Order Paedotrochida: Family Collothecidae
Synonym Floscularia Ehrenberg, 1832
Corona very large, circular, lobed, or pointed. The margins of the corona are furnished with long, very fine setae. Setae not arranged in whorls. The digestive system is very characteristic. The mastax has incudate trophi. Mostly sessile forms, the Collothecans are usually found in clear, gelatinous tubes. In a clear gelatinous tube. Foot terminated by a long, nonretractile peduncle, ending in an adhesive disc. Mostly sessile. Five species are free-swimming and may be found in lake plankton.
Freshwater water sample from Elmer Lake.
Under 1cm, not including antennae.
Observed by a Coachella Valley Conservation Commission trail camera.
I found this egg after having soaked a sample of moss from a tree, in water. This is definitely a Paramacrobiotus egg. This particular egg was highly ornamented, with very densely distributed, and very pointy spines. This type of egg ornamentation is only found in the genus Paramacrobiotus.
As far as I know, this is the 1st observation of a Paramacrobiotus egg on iNaturalist.
Perhaps someone with a better knowledge of Tardigrades could ID this egg down to its exact species.