May 12-13, 2012
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This duck pond was largely surrounded by mud at this point. For the most part there were only dried remains of last year’s vegetations though here and there some small cattails were coming up. The water was relatively high but must have receded, since just a little higher up there were patches of empty pond snail shells.

There were few ducks but lots of audible frogs, and many water striders, beetles, and pond snails in the shallows. The surface of the sample was covered in ephippia, at least partly from Daphnia, with a number of velvet springtails resting and hopping on top.

Below the water was teeming with crustaceans: ostracods, copepods, and various water fleas, particularly larger Simocephalus with visible young. Besides these and their tag-alongs the most obvious life was vorticellid colonies. There were also several types of rotifers and a few flatworms hiding among the ephippia or bottom dirt.

↬ Thanks to zoologist Dr. Alexander Kostenko for the identification of Phaenocora and to ciliatologist Dr. Ivan Dovgal for the identification of a cyst as likely Podophrya fixa.