| Actual Image
Bdelloid Rotifer (12)
Signal-Womb
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 1027 W: 58 N: 2900]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/g-g-g.gif) (11044) | Have a look at my WORKSHOP for a better sample at 400x.
Todays post opens a window unto a world of small animals, small plants, and small things in general. Last week I posted a shot of Plankton this week its a small animal called the ROTIFER. To obtain this sample I simple went out to the garden with a syringe and draw up a few mls of dirty water. Here we see this animal in various stages of magnification to give some kind of scale on how small these things are.
Rotifers are small, mostly freshwater animals, and are amongst the smallest members of the Metazoa -- that group of multicellular animals which includes humans, and whose bodies are organized into systems of organs. Most are about 0.5mm in length or less, and their bodies have a total of around a thousand cells.
Look carefully and you can see the rotifers internal organs. Their most salient feature, and the one which caused them to be named "wheel animals" by early microscopists, is the corona -- usually in the form of two lobes surrounded by beating cilia, which give a vivid impression of rapidly rotating wheels.
Here we see the rotifer is attached by its foot, the current created by the corona brings food particles to the mouth, and when the rotifer releases the grip of its foot, they act as twin propellers, transporting the rotifer rapidly from one place to another. They are all females and produce eggs requiring no fertilization.
HOWS IT DONE?
First of all let me say I have not perfected the technique for using my camera for micro-photography. I am simply using eyepiece projection with various eyepieces to get the best results. The higher I go in magnification the more difficult it becomes to get a sharp picture because of the very shallow depth of field and the the lowering of light. At 400x I find myself using ISO 800-1600 on the camera. |
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