Friday 23 October 2015

Friday at the Flicks - Life in a Clump of Algae

FATTHEF

When I went to clean out the bird bath I noticed three green mounds in the water.
This was the largest at about 20mm (3/4 inch) across:

DSCN5502

I decided it was time to have another microscope session to see what, if any, life forms were living in it. To that end I transferred the largest splodge to a plastic dish:

 DSCN5506

I had hoped to see a few bits of microscopic life but was blown away by their sheer numbers in such a small place as you will see later in the video:

A screen grab from the video. Each life form is less than a tenth of a mm in size.
I think the star shaped objects are Staurastrum:

Screenshot 2015-10-17 at 01.03.57 pm

Another screen grab of a larger life form, about 10mm long and 1mm thick, possibly a midge larva. All the tiny pale specks are the things shown in the first screen grab:

Screenshot 2015-10-17 at 01.02.17 pm

On to the video:




Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you, whatever its size.

5 comments:

  1. Fascinating and really good quality. I bet it uploaded to YouTube before you turned the kettle on.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adrian: Reasonably quickly anyway as it was well over 100MB. Uploading photos seem almost instantaneous now.

      Delete
  2. Fascinating John - so much goes on around us about which we know so little.

    ReplyDelete
  3. so much life we don't even realize is there!

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  4. Weaver & TWG: We humans are well outnumbered by the amount of microscopic life.

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Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Any comment, or correction to any information or identification I get wrong, is most welcome. John

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