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Ciliate? I'm not really sure what this is. We saw a couple of them bouncing around in the background and finally this one tumbled into view and another followed it soon after. It was sort of an elongated hexagon shape with rounded edges. Video of it swimming here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf5uVMOR...
A marine biologist on board skimmed some plankton using really fine mesh nets and we took a drop from that sample and placed it under a microscope. Most of it was phytoplankton from this batch because it wasn't dipped that deep into the water and the mesh size on the net, but a few smaller zooplankton were in it, such as this critter as well as the rotifer in my previous spotting. The sample was skimmed in Izhut Bay just off Afognak Island at a depth less than 200 ft.
Spotted on Oct 27, 2019
Submitted on Oct 27, 2019
2 Comments
I agree Mark, so many interesting things. We were only planning on an hour or so of looking at stuff in the microscope, and I ended up staying up late and looking for about three hours, most of it from just one drop of the concentrated seawater! It was amazing how much was going on. As for the ID, I have no idea! I know next to nothing about plankton.
So many interesting things at this scale. There seem to be cilia on one video frame. Almost shaped like Didinia?