Wheel animacule

[Mintaka]

Ok, I know there is nothing quite as boring as having to watch other people’s holiday and wildlife videos’ but I can’t resist sharing this clip that I took the other night of a rather unusual, yet very common animal.

It consists of a thousand or so cells, but appears to have intelligence enough (at least one forum member will be glad to note ;)) to engage in a ball game! Hope you enjoy as I have.

An amazing juggling rotifer

Caption:
This 250micron bdelloid rotifer appears to amuse itself by skillfully juggling three unicellular algae! In reality the animal is merely trying to swim or in the process of feeding, and is most likely unaware of the upset that she (bdelloids are female) is causing to the local flora. The algae themselves are of the mobile type, but seem unable to tear away from the powerful current created by the rotifer’s cilliate corona

Mintaka

[Mechanist1]

You took that clip? Nice, which microscope system do you use :D?

[Mintaka]

@Teleological post:2

You took that clip? Nice, which microscope system do you use :D?

Thanks. Equipment was nothing particularly fancy - just a high school level monocular scope with a small Nikon compact camera hand held to the eyepiece. The power was set at about 100x with another 3x from the camera. The sample was a wet mount from a local stream.

Mintaka

[Mechanist1]

@Mintaka post:3

@Teleological post:2

You took that clip? Nice, which microscope system do you use :D?

Thanks. Equipment was nothing particularly fancy - just a high school level monocular scope with a small Nikon compact camera hand held to the eyepiece. The power was set at about 100x with another 3x from the camera. The sample was a wet mount from a local stream.

Mintaka

Haha, steady hand you have there.