Week 2

The first thing I noticed this week was that the aquarium seemed to have a lot more dirt in it. Upon further inspection, I realized that it was not new dirt, but old dirt that had been scattered around by the creatures. The next thing I noticed was the abundance of small circular paramecium. I also identified an unknown turbellaria. There were new algae that grew throughout the aquarium. My favorite specimens were the flatworms. They were long, clear and swimming in a swirly motion. While I was intently looking at these smaller organisms, all of the sudden a huge monster swam into view for about half a second and then darted away before I could recover before shock. I quickly searched for the organism and I found it darting around the corners of the aquarium. I hurriedly drew a sketch of the creature before it disappeared again. I identified it as a copepoda, or a Cyclops (p.490 of Pennak’s freshwater Invertebrate of the United States). I was able to see the Cyclops with my naked eye, this made it a lot easier to find because it swam so fast. I also found a much smaller Cyclops that was identical to the larger one. It moved a lot slower and I was able to get a better look at it. Much of the organisms had changed since my last view, and I was shocked at the differences.

Week 1

Today we set up our MicroAquariums™ in Botany lab. I used water from source 1 which came from Tommy Schumpert Pond in Knoxville. It was in partial shade. Next, I put in some Amblystegium varium (moss) and some Utricularia vulgaris (flowering plant) and some general muck from the bottom of the water source.. Who knew such a wide assortment of life could be found in such a small amount of water? Upon putting the aquarium under the microscope for the first time I observed several tiny creatures immediately. I saw cilia spinning in circles and tiny protozoa with their many legs (or flagella), but what stood out most of all were the paramecium. At first glance they swam along at a slow pace, clear with a yellowish tinge, but as time passed I looked again and noticed they had green particles inside them. They were eating the algea! They must have been pretty hungry because by the end of the lab, every paramecium I saw had a thread of green algae inside its stomach. I also saw several nematodes, they were long and skinny and glided around, unlike other things I saw which darted so fast it was hard to get a good look at them.