Tiny Organisms in Aquatic Habitats

Ciliates – SAR-Alveolata (Ciliophora)

Observations on Coleps hirtus

Position in the EOL taxonomic tree. Please click on the tree view below to access EOL (Encyclopedia of Life).

Coleps hirtus (O. F. Müller, 1786) Nitzsch ex Ersch & Gruber, 1827

Most likely ID: n.a.

Basionym: Cercaria hirta O. F. Müller, 1786

Add’l Synonyms: n.a.

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Sampling date 7/2018 (third image). Scale bars indicate 10 µm (1, 2).

Three images. Coleps is one of nature´s little scavengers. It can eat residual tissue attached to cast off exoskeletons of arthropods, or will attack organisms. A mass occurrence of Coleps hirtus can endanger fish fry!

First:Overall view of the pellicula showing the calcified armoured plates.
Second:Optical cross-section through the specimen showing the cytostome (at the left pole of the elliptical body), the big round and granulated nucleus (in the middle) and the contractile vacuole (at the right pole of the elliptical body).
Third:Coleps hirtus attacking another ciliate.

Please click on < or > on the image edges or on the dots at the bottom edge of the images to browse through the slides!

Place names:

For first and second image:
Tropical freshwater aquarium  
Latitude: 54.3018013     Longitude: 10.07120132

Microscope Zeiss Axioplan, camera Olympus OM-D M5 MKII. One DOF image.

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For the third image:
Place name: Pond Birkensee near Rödelsee (Lower Franconia, Germany) 
Latitude: 49.71819841     Longitude: 10.27807474

Microscope Zeiss Axioplan, camera Canon DSLR.

Copyright Dr. Rainer Meisch, Würzburg, Germany.

© Wolfgang Bettighofer,
images under Creative Commons License V 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA).
For permission to use of (high resolution) images please contact postmaster@protisten.de.

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