A Second Look

To begin I will describe the exciting developments along Plant B.  Also, I would mention that all of my observations were taken under variances of the 10X magnification.

 The first noted organism was distinctly a nematode near the middle of the microaquarium, in height.  It appeared to have the opaqueness of parafilm and seemed very smooth.  Its whipping movement was very rapid.  To distinguish from my last post, this organism had no strands at the head.  As for the organism I reported last week, having the elastic and whippish movements, it had strands sprouting from the top that did not seem to be the full length of typical hydra tentacles.  Thus I am still unsure  of what it was.  It did appear to be consuming some of the nearby matter, but during this observation it was nowhere to be found, which suggests that it has deceased and floated to the bottom.

I also found a single kurzia, which is a cladoceran identified in the phylum of arthropoda.  I found it feeding along the stem projections.  Its internal organs were visible through the microscope and it appeared very light colored, yellowish if anything, and moved with the aid of its tail projection.  The tail projection resembled a stubby version of a stingray's tail and seemed to move in a bending form towards the underside of the organism.  Its movements were not rapid and it did not traverse much area but it certainly was an active creature.

  My favorite find of the day was an annelida.  It had a very long body that steadily moved along Plant B without stopping.  Its only hindrances came when it reached a projecting part of the plant.  Any time it collided with one of these it had a recoiling reflex whereby the head would bump first and then set on a new path.  Its digestive tract was also extremely long and was plain to see even within the body.  The organism was non-chlorophyllic.  The body was segmented and had scarcely noticeable chetae, little flagella looking features on the individual segements,whose small size help distinguish this annelid from related annelids whose chetae are more pronounced.  It reminded me of a large snake swimming in a body of water.  To move it would "scrunch" select segments and then thrust when extending the segments so that it moved forward.  It also had a subtle windingness in its movement, that made me also think of a snake.

I also spotted multiple closterum toxons during my session, and mostly near the lower parts of the plant.  The first two I noticed were slightly curved, bright green (from cholorplasts), and stationary.  The cell wall was transparent so that the vacuoles were visible.  The tips in each of them were rounded.  The first one I found was near Plant B and the second was actually near Plant A.  In between the two plants, stranded in the water, were two dead ones that had retained their cell wall structures but had lost all of their chlorophyl and had become clear.