Jul 8-9, 2010
Video: wetland microlife 6 of 14 clips

This was from a stormwater pond with a rocky bottom and many submerged plants growing further out. In places along the shore there were stands of cattails, and at least the nearest were surrounded by thick floating mats, coloured greenish-black except some dry spots that were singed brown. The sample included a large piece and some plant fragments from underneath it.

The walls of the container were shortly covered by countless tadpole snails. These were accompanied by some leeches and many cyclopoids with or without eggs. There were also many roundworms and midge larvae with them and in the mat, where some of the latter were visible by rhythmic pulsing.

In both places there were also many large Stentor, apparently eaten by cyclopoids, and various spirotrichs such as Stylonychia. The mats themselves were mainly filamentous cyanobacteria, at least partly gliding or rotating types, and dropped innumerable small diatoms whenever disturbed.

A variety of rotifers were present including several bdelloids, Lepadella, Brachionus, and worm-like ploimids. Other notable animals included some flatworms, small annelids, and a sluggish Hydra. Finally, on the second day a silvery film had started to form on the mat, which contained several fast Paramecium and smaller ciliates.

↬ Thanks to zoologists Dr. Alexander Kostenko for confirming the identification of Stenostomum and Dr. Nataliia Iakovenko for the identification of Philodina megalotrocha.