My Omnipotence: Week 2

On 10/23/2013 I returned to the lab and spent over two hours viewing my creation. I started by briefly viewing my MicroAquarium™ with the compound light microscope. This allowed me to compare my findings with the previous session in which I used only a compound light microscope. I quickly realized it was much more difficult to find a noticeable living organism. It seemed like everything "settled" over the course of the previous week. I noticed movement near and under the surface of the debris on the bottom. I then moved to a compound microscope with digital video recording capabilities. 

This microscope was able to produce a more clear and vibrant viewing experience than the previous compound microscope. However, there was a learning curve. The digital setup in lab requires the user to locate an organism via live image on a monitor and then switch the source of the monitor to a PC so that the user may gain control of the recording software and engage the recording process. During the few seconds of this transition a fast moving organism will have moved out of the microscopes field of view. THIS. WAS. FRUSTRATING. I was able to capture one of the fast moving organisms as seen in Figure 2 but was unable to identify it; I will work on this and report back next week. 

A great deal of my time was spent positively identifying the organism Surirella oblonga as seen in Figure 1. I found him after slowly scanning the MicroAquarium™ from left to right. As you will see in Video 1, this organism moved slowly and smoothly. This organism appeared to be gliding along with the slight current of the water, but this was disproved when it stopped completely at times and even changed direction. I hypothesized that the organism was taking water in one orifice and expelling in out of another to create propulsion. After researching diatoms and their movement I have discovered my hypothesis was likely incorrect. This diatom probably moves with tiny flagella that are unable to be captured with the equipment at hand. Notice the "cigar" shape and bilateral symmetry.

Figure 1: Digital photograph of Surirella oblonga. (Prescott, 1954)

Video 1: Digital video of Surirella oblonga. (Prescott, 1954)

I went through many books before I was able to positively identify this diatom. I was able to positively identify the organism as Surirella oblonga Ehrenberg with the book "How to Know the Freshwater Algae". (Prescott, 1954) I narrowed the search first visually then by more specific detail. I found a few diatoms with the cigar shape of mine but only one that fit the description perfect. The dead giveaway was the unique transparent linear area running through the center of this organism. This diatom is a non-green algae.

Here is a photo and brief video of the unidentified multi-cellular organism that I captured. There were many of these in my MicroAquarium™ but they were all very active. They also appear to dislike the light output from the microscope. This could be why I found these organisms near the debris in the bottom of the MicroAquarium™.

Figure 2: Digital photograph of unidentified organism.

Video 2: Digital video of unidentified organism.