Oct 3-4, 2008
Next sample

This park has a small shaded stream, which is actually run-off from a golf course. Earlier in the year there were some clumps of green algae, but at this point they had disappeared. This sample was from a sluggish part where fallen leaves were collecting. It included one of the rocks, which were covered in strings of brownish material that easily came apart when touched.

A few larger midge larvae had made tubes upon the rock. Otherwise the material included mainly rod-shaped diatoms, along with some other pennate kinds and Melosira filaments. Small naked amoebae were reasonably common, mostly finger-like Tubulinea and Actinophrys, but also some Heterolobosea and Discosea.

Ciliates were also common, most notably Strobilidium, both swimming freely and caught on debris. There were also varying sizes of vorticellids, of flattened spirotrichs, and of free-living Phyllopharyngea, with the last sometimes seen feeding on diatoms. A few small bacterial films had round to star-shaped Dendrosoma attached.

↬ Thanks to ciliatologist Dr. Ivan Dovgal for the identification of Dendrosoma radians.