Pages

Mystery Micrograph #22

[originally posted on 18.06.10 1:45am]
[EDIT 23.07.10: Btw, this mystery micrograph is still unsolved. Get crackin'. Ask questions if you need to.]

Apologies for the delay. To buy myself some time, I'll make it a really hard one this time. Like, a TEM. Bwahahaa. I'll give you a hint: these are not moth antennae.

Scalebars: 1um. To be referenced later.

Ultrastructure is particularly evil. Because it shows cells (cell slices) as they are, rather than how the researcher or artist thinks they are.

[25.06.10 HINT]: These structures are a synapomorphy/unique shared feature of one specific group of organisms.

11 comments:

  1. Right - small protists = small feathers =P

    I guess I should release a hint or something eventually...?

    ReplyDelete
  2. OK, lessee (dangit I should know this stuff).

    Hydrogenosomes. Anaerobic protist.

    Axostyle. Trichomonad or oxymonad.

    More than one of 'em. Probably a "hypermastigote" type of trichomonad.

    Feathery pelta? OK, I don't have one of those in the library ...

    Third image from the left?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Going pretty good there, all the way until and including Hypermastigote.

    These structures are a variation of something very characteristic...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Is it [i]Joenina[/i]?

    ReplyDelete
  5. How large is the taxon for which these structures are a synaptomorphy? As large as a domain, say?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Is it a section through a Kinetoplast? Although I had to squint to see a resemblance.

    ReplyDelete
  7. @Paul Close enough. Joenoides. So what are those feather-like structures?


    @anon Nah; just Parabasalia in general. I'm not sure what the official rank of that taxon is, as I reject ranked taxonomy ;-)

    @Douglas No, kinetoplasts are very "hockey puck"-like. Like a super-dense disk of loopy things (chromosomes).

    ReplyDelete
  8. "So what are those feather-like structures?"

    They are the 'parabasal fibers' - composed of numerous subfibers that spread through the cytoplasm and are associated with the Golgi.

    At least, that's my assumption. I wasn't able to get the journal article that I imagine the pictures are from: Ultrastructure of Joenoides intermedia (Grassé 1952), a symbiotic parabasalid flagellate of Hodotermes mossambicus, and its comparison with other joeniid genera. I had to make an educated guess from the abstract.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Yup, very cool-looking parabasal fibres!

    Actually this is from Brugerolle & Bordereau 2003 Eur J Prot (http://dx.doi.org/10.1078/0932-4739-00898), which should be easier to access than the older paper. If not, and if you'd like, I can send you a pdf if interested ^^

    ReplyDelete
  10. I don't have access to that journal. I'd appreciate the pdf - looks really interesting. I'm a bacteria guy, so I really don't have much protozoa experience. I'm always blown away by how complex protozoa are. If you could send me the pdf to pworthen(at)whazel.com, that would be great.

    ReplyDelete

Markup Key:
- <b>bold</b> = bold
- <i>italic</i> = italic
- <a href="http://www.fieldofscience.com/">FoS</a> = FoS