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Mystery Micrograph #24

Ok, last one was too easy – Braarudosphaera, a rather polyhedral coccolithophorid (haptophyte) which serves as strong evidence that our Creator was a D&D geek. Apparently he/she/it liked their tabletop RPGs microscopic. Who knew.

Time for an evil one, then. Oh, how can one be evil with micrographs...oh right, TEMs! Those tend to drive everyone crazy. Bwahahaha...

Oh what could this be? If only you knew... (to be referenced later)

Have fun! Again, if you're some sort of protistologist and immediately recognise what this is, stay the hell away. Stand back and savour some painful guesswork first – see, everyone wins!
on

12 comments:

  1. TotallyUnspooledOctober 3, 2010 at 12:06:00 AM PDT

    Way too easy:

    a. Chipotle napkin
    b. "Tunnel of Love" entrance
    c. bacon
    d. Number 14, Gray (detail) Jackson Pollock, 1948 (Mixed enamel over gesso on paper)

    Both images on the right side are decoys.

    NEXT!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 6, 2010 at 7:21:00 AM PDT

    hmm, could that be an EYE?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Psi WavefunctionOctober 6, 2010 at 11:15:00 PM PDT

    @Tuco That's got to be an honourary win! =D

    @Anon Potentially something like that, sure.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousOctober 7, 2010 at 4:43:00 AM PDT

    that looks somewhat like thylakoids. Must be a dino-eye then?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Psi WavefunctionOctober 7, 2010 at 10:14:00 PM PDT

    Getting much warmer ;) Wanna pick a genus or two?

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousOctober 11, 2010 at 1:24:00 AM PDT

    hmm, no I couldn't. Warnowiid for sure, but that includes nematodinium and protoerythropsis. I remembered figure a. from nematodinium. Sorrie, I knew more or less already.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousOctober 11, 2010 at 2:12:00 AM PDT

    Oh yes, the figures on the right are no decoys...
    Not sure about fig. e, but f. is the retinal (chloroplast layer) of the lower part of fig. b. The vesicles surrounding the retina contain melamin, which is jet-black in the light microscope. It makes sure that only light from the lens can reach the retina, no from other sides...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Psi WavefunctionOctober 11, 2010 at 2:54:00 AM PDT

    'Warnowiid' is perfect; AFAIK, can't tell genera apart by their ocelli. Somehow, the word 'family' escaped me during previous reply; that's what I meant by 'a genus or two'.

    And if you are who I think you are, you're indeed totally cheating there =P Does the victor of this MM currently hail from the other coast by any chance?

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousOctober 12, 2010 at 6:56:00 AM PDT

    Might do ;-)
    No idea about you btw...

    To excuse myself, the first suggestion of an eye was NOT by me.

    In any case, this was my first introduction to your blog, very nice diary!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Psi WavefunctionOctober 12, 2010 at 5:51:00 PM PDT

    I later noticed you two anons may be different: I'm pretty sure I know who the first one is though =P

    By any chance, have you (anon#2) worked on Warnowiids + other dinos in Vancouver? If so, you probably wouldn't know me, but I think we did overlap by a couple of years; that was before I got abducted by the local protistology contingent.

    In any case, welcome to my madness! ^.^

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousOctober 14, 2010 at 9:47:00 AM PDT

    Ha, no, but Mona is not working very far from here (I think that was your guess, right? :-)

    Good luck in any case, Psi!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Psi WavefunctionOctober 22, 2010 at 1:34:00 AM PDT

    I was wondering whether you were Mona, yes. Now I'm all out of ideas. There aren't too many people who "remember figure 1a from Nematodinium", so we may well cross paths someday ;-)

    ReplyDelete

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