Field of Science

Moss Microforay

Occasionally, I do go out. In anticipation of such an unlikely event, I usually have an eppie tube or two and possibly a ziplock bag in my pocket. In that case, I collect random samples of whatever I'm in the mood for, and abuse my work-related scope access privileges engage in highly legitimate microscopy practice. I like to take pictures, and although I have a long ways to go to reach the professional protistology levels, I try...anyway... <_< So here was one such foray, where I collected a wet moss sample, and added a drop to a slide. Turned out to be teeming with life:



As for identification, I only have a faint idea for the most obvious ones. The rest stump me clueless. But I'll try. Any real protistologists out there, feel free to help out!

Plate I:
A - Test of some sort of amoeba. Euglyphid?
B-E - green algae of sorts
F-H - ? algae...
I - a young hypha emerging from an fungal spore (awww, so touching!)
J - ???
K - green algal like thing again
L - amoebozoan test?

Plate II:
A-C - green algae, although C may be some sort of photosynthetic excavate for all I know...
D - fungus?
E - generic round biflagellated algal thingie (probably as far as one can get without molecular analysis)
F - a spore?
G-H - amoebozoans
I - too small for a nematode I think... so perhaps a euglenid of some sort?
J - timelapse of some non-photosynthetic motile flagellated thingie
K - Euglyphid!
L - green algae of sorts
M - ??? Algae. Of sorts.

Someday I hope to fail less epically at this kind of thing. Perhaps is some protistologist out there is willing to train me. As a grad student. Or something... /explicit self-advertisement

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