This is a follow-up to my previous post. An incredible picture by Professor Chris Lobban from University of Guam.

"Other-worldly Maristentor"

Today I attended a meeting dedicated to nanobiology (another recent buzzword). One of the speakers, prof. Daniel Morse from UC Santa Barbara, talked about synthesis of nanostructures using silicatein. Silicatein is an enzyme extracted from marine glass sponges, that catalyzes synthesis of silica. Sp...

Beautiful capture! Are these eyes, the dark spots?

Incredibly cool, Frez!!! I really like the combination of green Vorticella and red algae. Great work! I have no idea, though, what makes the Vorticella fluorescent.

(I feel sorry now, once I had the vertical fluorescence attachment for my AO and never tried it...)

Bill, Thank you for your kind comments. A little marine aquarium is not that complicated! Let me share some of my experiences (I’m not an expert by no means). I used to have a very simple, 2.5 gallon tank (and, later, a little bigger one, 10 gallon). The only necessary things are: container (glass o...

Amazing pictures!!! These living diatoms look very beautiful in DIC illumination. I have never seen such arrangements. Very interesting!

Stunning picture!

Absoulutely amazing pictures!!! You are lucky to capture such an intimate moment of these beautiful creatures!

I have a link to a very appropriate poem: The Conjugation of Paramecium, by Muriel Rukeyser.

Excellent optical sections! Very interesting organism, I agree!

Beautifully captured, Gerd! A comprehensive shot collection of this little challenging jumper... Why is it yellow, because of DIC used?

Beautiful and interesting! Marine microlife is so diverse!

Yes, coccolithophores look amazing under a SEM!!!

Rene, what method of collecting plankton of this size do you use? Some kind of plankton net? Are all of these pelagic organisms?

Excellent pictures! Very unique feel.

Yesterday I visited Anza Borrego State Park. Several kinds of plants are blooming nicely, including impressive red flowers of Ocotillo ( Fouquieria splendens ). Pictured below is its pollen. http://www.pirx.com/gallery/albums/micro/oco_pollen.jpg 25x/0.60 objective, Sony DSC-V1, stacked with CombineZ

Thanks, Wim, and I hope I will be posting more images from now. I started collecting marine plankton and it is fun. So many microorganisms I haven't seen before!

Recently we have seen many pictures of Litonotus . This, I believe, is Amphileptus - a related species. Amphileptus can have two or more macronuclei ( Litonotus has two), and you can clearly see three macronuclei in this phase contrast picture. http://www.pirx.com/gallery/albums/micro/amphileptus.jp...