Oh wow! Thats awesome! (thanks for sharing more!
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Haha, yes, I know they have a name but since this thing is so tiny, I just said it 'looked' like X because I couldnt really tell. Thanks for the what I see is a class name! I didnt get this guy under the scope today so I still dont know more about what he looks like. He rests in a tupperware until tomorrow! haha.
Ok so, today was moreso a day/chance for me to figure out what im working with or what i have to look forward to. Here is what I came up with!
Pictures/info about the picture:
The first picture (Below) is a flatworm I collected off the front glass of my tank. It is about 0.5-1mm long when extended on the glass. Following some preservation advice for other types of invertebrates, I tried putting it in a solution of 70% ethanol which would also operate as a working medium (which would not leave 'salt' creep either. It turns out when you put this particular flatworm into ethanol, not only do they get upset and curl up (death resulting ofcourse), but they also turn from a dark brown/black, to a bright green colour (it was like a neon green to the naked eye). Unsure of the best way to plate it, I took the now altered specimen and put it on a microscope slide with the ethanol and added a coverslip. Here is a 'point' of one of the rear sections of the flatworm (this one has two rear points, unfortunately here it is slightly curved to the side so it looks out of line). The magnification here is 1000X.
Next, I collected what I figured was in fact an actual copepod of some sort. Applied the same ethanol treatment (transfered it to a solution of 70% ethanol). Here it did not appear to affect the specimen at first. I then transfered the specimen in the same way to a microscope slide with a coverslip. I should note that until and beyond this point I was using a compound or light microscope. I think the coverslip damaged the specimen as one can identify what appears to be the inner fluids of the specimen have 'blown out' the back end of it. The transfer was very clean and I rinsed it before it went in so I am quite sure this is what happened. The following pictures show with a magnification of 40x, 100x, 400x, and then 1000x on the upper left section of the head. I though it was cool that you could see colour in the specimen's head. Here are the pictures:
The next specimen is another type of copepod. This one I chose to attempt observation under a dissecting microscope, and placed it in the smallest drop of water I could get (I only had some crappy plastic disposable pipettes, so it was hard to adjust the drop size). the magnification on this microscope has a 10x ocular lens (similar to the compound microscope) and either 1x or 3x magnification on the primary lense. So the total magnification (in the end in these pictures) is 30x. This is another type of copepod, this one in particular is a female with a large upper body, and a thin tail section. Some sort of swimming mechanism is visible below the mid-section, and along the tail are egg-sacs. When I first took a look under the microscope the specimen was still, and I accidentally bumped it and it took off swimming around like crazy in this drop of water! That was the coolest thing ever to watch! I highly recommend watching that if you ever get the chance. I may try to get a video of it again, but it is a little hard. Another thing that boggled my mind was the sight of some of the small specs in the picture (that are like 1/500th the size of this pod) were Swimming around! You could see parts of some sort moving, and they were not completely round. That i have to check out! Anyways, here are some pictures. In one the specimen is on it's side, and the other it is 'flat'.
Hope everyone enjoy's the pictures! Oh, I'd like to add that sorry if the picture quality sucks, but this is using my Blackberry's 3.2MP camera 'looking in to' the lense where you would typically place your eye! It is VERY hard to get the picture to stay still in the correct spot (and you have to position it about 1" from the eyepiece), hence the blurred sections in most of the pictures. My professors were not there today and it was a random lab technician that let me do this stuff, so im hoping I can get some 'back-up' tomorrow in terms of getting some more functional material, and maybe finding out about a better 'scope.
Thanks for looking!
Cheers,
Chris