November 4, 2010

The insect larvae is still alive this week and is see through with spots ringing each segment.  It is also covered in tiny hairs.  These details were much easier to see with the microscope that I used this week while taking pictures.  I am still in the process of identifying the pictures of the organisms that I took, however, so I won't be posting them this week.  I will probably have them up within the next few days though.  Among the organisms that I took pictures of and have identified are ostracods, cyanobacteria, oscillatoria, and a juvenile cyclops.  The oscillatoria are a type of filamentous cyanobacteria that are known for their oscillating movements.  They are very rod-like and blue-green in color.  The juvenile cyclops doesn't have the long tail that is characteristic of the mature cyclopses.  It is therefore composed mainly of a roundish body with small protrusions spiking off of it and is easily identifiable as cyclops by the eyespot.  There are also many rotifers, diatoms, tachysoma, nematodes, coleochaete, and euglina.  The diatoms are found throughout the microaquarium.  These are characterized by their glassy appearance.  The Euglina are very jerky in their movements due to its vacuole's periodic contractions.  Coleochaete are part of the green algae and are organized into multicellular structures, and are also known as round worms and are unsegmented.