Mindful Ramblings

The following websites have many microscopic images for Kingdom Monera & Kingdom Protista and may be helpful in identifying specimen you find in your experiments for Module 2 & 3:

Dennis Kunkel Microscopy

Ron’s Pond Scum

Microscopy UK

Micropolitan Museum

You can take a look at Bacterial Cell Structure at Cells Alive.  And don’t forget these for some interesting facts about bacteria:  Bacteria, Friend or Foe?

 From The Case for a Creator series: 

We had planned to make collection our pond water a field trip, but because of our schedules and weather conditions, we were not able to pull it off.  I, instead, trudged out to find our specimen with a brave friend.  You can check out that adventure if you’d like:  Apologia Biology – Pond Water, Part A, also know as Experiment 2.1….collecting pond water in Florida does take a bit of courage!

Pictures & Notes from Experiment 2.2

Here is the pond where we collected our samples.  As you can see it is a very wild, wooded area, more of a wetland area, then a pond.  The water was teeming with minnows and frogs and there are often turtles in the area.  Our Co-Op class fell on the 3rd day following collection, so we did not see a huge amount of activity.  The samples, however, smelled quite ripe!

Here are the two best images we got from the day:

Specimen #1

We saw movement in the specimen with the egg and the specimen with the dried grass, but unfortunately couldn’t find anything moving in the other two specimen.  (The long strands are fibers from the cotton we used.)

While it was not a class day the following day, I decided that it would be a good idea to check our specimen the following day since the population should reach it’s peak between day three and day five.  There was a huge difference in the population.  (See Figure 2.5 in your textbook for a chart about this exponential growth.)   Here are some images for you to identify using your textbook.  (There are pictures on pages 61, 62, and 69.  If you can’t find them there, you can also check Dennis Kunkel Microscopy.)

Specimen #2

Specimen #3 – first image, long thin specimen could be a Diatom

Specimen #4

Specimen #5 – Both images look to have Amoeba, 2nd images may also have either a Rotifer or some kind of insect larva

Specimen #6 – First image, Amoeba

I was able to get a video capture from the specimen with the egg, but I need to figure out how to re-format it in order to upload.  I did not post the identification for the above specimen, but would love your feedback on what you think it is.

Study Link:  Module 2 Flashcards