Observations 11/12/14

During my observations on 11/12/14, I noticed the activity had seemed to have dropped considerably even more. I was having a difficult time finding some of the larger microorganisms. It appeared as though the majority of them had died while the smaller ones were beginning to take over.I did see 2 rotifers and a few cilia.
With assistance, I was able to identify two organisms as you will see below. Both were located in the lower middle of the microaquarium.

The picture below is of a Centropyxis sp.(Patterson Fig. 184 pg. 96). This is a shelled amoeba with eats bacteria.This amoeba's pseudopodia comes out its aperture (circular opening in the center of the amoeba) enabling the amoebae to crawl around on a surface. Its peristome extends for one-half the body length. The contractile vacuole is anteriorly located. It has two ovoid macronuclei (EOL 2014).

The picture below is of the second organism I identified. It is a Litonotus sp (Patterson Fig. 286 pg. 133). About one third of its body is contractile. It's movement is similar to a slow glide. This ciliate consumes many different kinds of prey such as Euplotidium (Margulis 2002).