Hi.
I haven't posted in a while but after finding some more interesting critters under the microscope, I had to share.
This is from a drop of stagnant water. There are some very large paramecium swimming around but also some tulip shaped vorticella. The vorticella have a rounded body with a large opening (a mouth of sorts) surrounded by fine hair-like filaments called cilia. The cilia move the surrounding water in such a way that the vorticella can capture suspended particles for food.
Vorticella are normally attached to a solid surface by a long strand called a myoneme. The myoneme can contract very quickly and can pull the body close to the surface its attached to. This may be to escape from danger but may also serve some other purpose. Early on in the video you will see a paramecium collide with a myoneme which then contracts and slowly relaxes. Given the speed of contraction, the myonemes must be extremely strong as they are only 1-2 microns in diameter. By comparison, a human hair is from 17 to 181 microns.
The microscope magnification is x400.
I hope you enjoy the video.
