Week #4

Week #4-

Update all the way from week #1-

• Identified the flat worm as Platyhelminth (side notes: they resemble some ciliates, have pliable bodies, and a surface coating of cilia)

-->Citation for Platyhelminth: Patterson, D.J. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa. CRC Press Inc. Boca Raton, Florida: 1992. Pg. 28.

Other updates-

• Ostracods/Water Flea/Seed Shrimp still alive
• Plenty of Tachysoma alive and swimming around
• Rotifers still present
• Ciliophora still prominent and alive

Found no new organisms this week

Week #3

Week #3 (a little less eventfull)-

Updates on Previously Found Organisms-

• Still LOTS of Tachysomas present
• Rotifers still present
• Ostracods/Water Fleas/Seed Shimps still present

Some general information on Ostracods can be found here: http://w3.gre.ac.uk/schools/nri/earth/ostracod/introduction.htm

• Ciliophora still very much present

1 New Organism Found-

• Arcella (*closely related to Difflugia, both in the subclass Testacea lobusa (i.e. shelled amoeba) but have different genus)

Citation for Arcella: Rainis, Kenneth and Bruce Russell. Guide to MicroLife. Grolier Publishing. Danbury Connecticut: 1996. Pg. 159.

Week #2

This is Week #2 (some things old, some are new):

General Observations about the actual aquarium-

• Lost water
• Most living organisms appear to be in or near the dirt
• A lot of the organisms elsewhere are dead and/or hiding
• Algae (Spyrogyra) turning brown in places

Observations of the organisms found last week-

• Water Flea/Ostracod- still living
• Cyclops could not be found this week
• My Difflugia was found...dead
• Identified the "little black tick" from last week as a Rotifer. Found a few more this week. All living.
• Found a the shells of one or two dead seed shrimp

New organisms!-

• 1st new finding: Appear as clear little specs, very small, move around almost constantly, present in large numbers, identified as Ciliophora

-->Citation for Ciliophora: Rainis, Kenneth and Bruce Russell. Guide to Microlife. Grolier Publishing. Danbury, Connecticut: 1996. Pg. 96.

• 2nd new finding: Their body is somewhat oval shaped..but a little more elongated, they have flagella, you can see through their torso to what looks like an intricate internal system, identified as Tachysoma

-->Citation for Tachysoma: Patterson, D.J. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Color Guide. Manson Publishing. Washington D.C.:2003. Pg. 125.

Week #1

For Week #1, here's some of what I found (some identified, some not yet):

• Round black body with flagella..looks sort of like a little sun ---> identified as a Sarcodinid.. more specifically, Difflugia.

-->Citation for Difflugia: Patterson, D.J. Free-Living Freshwater Protazoa. Manson Publishing. Washington D.C.: 2003. Pg. 95, figure 186

• Black/clear specs...usually in clusters...usually moving
• A "morphing blob creature" more commonly reffered to as a flat worm.(Currently I have no further information available..possibly misspelled the name?)
  

• Water flea/Ostracod/seed shrimp ---> found in dirt, appeared to have very rapid movement inside the body, two antler-like flagella

-->Citation for Water flea information: Kenneth Rainis, and Bruce Russel. Guide to MicroLife. Franklin Watts. Danbury, Connecticut: 1996.

• A really fast moving animal that looks a lot like a little black tick with a single tail...

• A tiny Cyclops

-->Citation for Cyclops information: Henry Ward, and George Whipple. Fresh-water Biology. John&Whiley&Sons Inc. London: 1918. Pg. 774.


This is about all for the first week of observations...

Initial Observations.

We made our MicroAquariums.
I chose water sample #11.
I also included both the some of the moss and some of the green plant provided on the table.

Here are the initial notes I took as I observed on the first day:

• fast moving black thing
• little brown rotating thing
• clear "water-eaters"
• tiny moving circles

Clearly, these are not very scientific notes, but I had no idea what I was doing that day to be perfectly honest.