Denizens of the Ditch

Rotifer Cafeteria

I found a few more lively things in the ditch beside my home and snapped a few pictures. On the camera adapter front, things look a bit promising. The fellow who sold me the scope is working on adapting a Leitz relay lens to my Canon. This would allow the use of a Zeiss objective and, hopefully (with fingers crossed), would result in crisper images. But I digress.

This little fellow was worm-like and seemed to run across my view on front and back legs. A look through all my "critter" guidebooks seemed to indicate this was a larva of some type of Diptera, a two-winged fly. Closest picture looked like a Tendipes.

This is one of those no-idea-what-it-is ciliates. It was surrounded by what appeared to be cilia and if I remember correctly, moved fairly slowly. I'm tempted to call it a Silliate but that wouldn't be very scientific.

This is likely some alga in the act of dividing or multiplying, or whatever it is they do in trying to take over the world. Or could it be a set of designer spectacles that a tardigarde happened to lose?

This is one of those colonial flagellates commonly found in ponds; this one has 32 members (I counted them). Each individual has a couple of flagella that help propel the organism around the slide. I'm not certain but this may be a Pandorina.

I found what appears to be a Cyclops larva without ever seeing any large egg sacks on the female cyclops which are plentiful in my water samples. I've only observed what seems to be the start of these egg sacks. This little guy was very active until the water evaporated enough, with help from some tissue paper, to somewhat hinder his exuberance. A couple of red eye spots are visible on the front of his head.

Another one of those "Hmmmm???" critters. Very likely a Euglenid but I have no idea beyond that. I'm looking forward to the day when I can start getting closer to some level of recognition.



That's it for this session. Fishing season starts this Saturday and, unless we are inundated with continuously bad weather, I anticipate my postings will be somewhat diminished. Until later then.