Mayorella bigemma - A Small Amoeba

I seem to have an outbreak of Mayorella bigemma in my aquarium, if that's what they really are. I didn't go to any particular trouble to collect these, just lifted the lid and skimmed my watchglass over the surface. In the first pipette, I got a good selection of these amoeba that kept me busy for awhile.

I used a Nikon 40x Plan Achromat PH3 DL lens over a Nikon Fluophot Phase Condenser on the Nikon Fluophot scope. [It's nice to have all the parts, finally].

Processing was done in CS5. It's cropped a bit and I cleaned up the background. The colors are what I get from the Phase Condenser. Not sure where the nice blue comes from, cause I can not see it after I set final focus. Once it is in focus, I flip a mirror and trip the shutter and flash with the mouse. No filters in the light path, other than the IR stuff built into the Fluophot. Sharpening is done using USM, 0.45, 0.3, and 0.0 to one or two of the color channels, usually the red and sometimes the green, and that's about it.

I did get video. It's rendering now. I will add the link when it's uploaded later today. Here is the video link.

1. Amoeba engulfing a small ciliate. The amoeba is only about 25µm.

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beautiful

Thanks for looking Rick. I have been working at putting this scope together for about a year. Finally, it is all starting to come together, and giving some beautiful images in the process.

Excellent ...I like your Microscopic shots...a very different subject matter!

Thanks for looking. If your at all interested in this kind of thing, let me tell you, you can look in E-bay and find some really nice used scopes for less than you would pay for a new Canon Macro lens.

Takes some patience and luck, but there are a lot of used scopes out there.

Very nice captures, Mitch. Interesting stuff as usual

Cool. That third pic is very beautiful.

I agree, pretty and interesting. Not found that often in humans

Thanks Kurt, Gator and Bas. Amoeba have interested me since I was a kid. Maybe some kind of fascination with the old movie, The Blob? It's also the prime reason I bought my microscope, to learn more about them. They sure are endlessly fascinating to watch.