Identify My Invertebrate?

[ziggypie]

It's odd to say, but this looks like either some sort of Cestode, or a larval form of something much bigger than anything I have in the tank (save the Axolotls and the fake decor). I took this picture from a dissecting scope, I was silly and forgot to record the power, but I think it was between 10 and 20x (obviously no ocular power). If it helps, that blurb that you see next to it is an ostracod crustacean ~0.3 mm. Thank you!

 

[Jennewt]

It's a worm, that's about all I can tell you. Perhaps a nematode? I'm afraid I'm not very good at the game of "name that invert".

May I use your photo for Caudata Culture? I'm assembling a page of photos of "tank critters", and this would fit right in. Please PM me and tell me what name the copyright credit should be to.

 

[Eon Chao]

I'm fairly certain its not a Cestode. I assume thats the head on the photo which means it appears to lack a means of securing itself inside a host which is characteristic of most Cestodes. At a guess I'd say it was a small Annelid. Do you have a sand based substrate on the bottom? Is it possible for you to post a bigger picture of the whole organism as I could run it past my parasitology lecturers to see if they recognise it.

 

[ziggypie]

I was having fun taking more pictures, and so let's turn this into a game! I know most of my little friends (except for the worm you will see- as we obviously haven't gotten that one figured out yet, so keep at that one in the first post if you can, haha), but here we go!! ::booming game show voice:: "IDENTIFY MY INVERTEBRATES!" hehehe... And Jennewt, if you like these, too, then they are yours for the benefit of the forum!

I forgot to mention that these were all taken with a compound light microscope- under either scanning or low power!

 

[Jennewt]

The 5th and 6th are ostracods, those are the only ones I know for sure. Thanks for posting!

 

[i_love_necturus]

The 4th are rotifers of some species.

 

[ziggypie]

Correct so far! I love the first picture because if you look inside the sac there is a Rotifer just hanging out, looking so very cool and composed. If you look on another one of my threads, you'll see I have a special place in my heart for my wheel-bearers Keep at it, folks!

 

[Jennewt]

I finally got these photos posted on CC:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/Tank_critters2.shtml

Does anyone care to venture an ID for the first 3 photos in the group above?


P.S. I have moved this thread out of the axolotl area, as it seems to be of more general interest and not axie-specific.

 

[TristanH]

Just come across this thread. Nice photos!

The 1st photo looks to me like a ciliate protozoan.

The 2nd is a bdelloid (leech-like) rotifer.

The 3rd looks like another ciliate, though it's hard to be sure.

The 4th is another rotifer.

5 and 6 are ostracods. I vaguely recognise the creature with the ostracod but don't have my book handy I'm afraid.

7 looks like a small oligochaete worm (there are a lot of species and they're tricky to identify - theres a good link at http://sunsite.ualberta.ca/Projects/Aquatic_Invertebrates/?Page=17 )

Tristan

 

[onetwentysix]

With the worm in the first post, I think it's an annelid worm, since it appears to be segmented. Nematodes do not have segmentation. It's possibly an Oligochaete, but I'm not into non-arthropod invertebrate identification.

As a fun trivia, nematodes are eutelic, which means that when they're adults, they have a fixed number of cells in their body.