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Dividing Arcella (test construction in progress)

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American



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A quickie post to assure y'all I'm still around. Got a few proper posts coming soon!

Remember our testate amoeba friends, the arcellinids? Here is a pair of Arcellas (Arcellae?) in the midst of division. Organic tests(="shells") rust over time, as in they turn yellow and then brown with oxidation. Based on that, you can tell that the newer test is on the bottom, as they start out clear. These cells have almost finished dividing, with a lingering cytoplasmic bridge barely connecting the two, between their mouthes (ok, 'oral apertures'). Mouth-to-mouth division. The three tiny round things at the top end of the cytoplasmic bridge look like the last organelles that will be transferred over to the younger cell -- perhaps a few mitochondria, based on their size. Don't worry, there's already plenty that have been transferred to the younger cell already!

To split, arcellinids need to orient themselves on their sides, perpendicular to the surface. They do this by producing gas bubbles that increase bouyancy at one end and cause them to re-orient. The bubble at the bottom of the younger cell could be a remnant of that, or could be just a contractile vacuole -- can't tell from this image. Next to it is a nucleus with a very obvious nucleolus. The top cell has one too. After separating and returning to their default upright position, the two amoebae will probably be quite hungry, and go on with their ploy to devour pretty much anything they can get on top of. There are documentations of arcellinids feasting on nematodes and rotifers, but more on that sometime later. This specimen is from a pond sample, although they thrive in soil as well.

About Psi Wavefunction

I first encountered the wonders of the protist realm back in childhood, when a murky droplet of pond scum was revealed by the microscope to entail an alien world in its own right. It took another decade to discover there was a field and a community dedicated to these organisms, and I bade farewell to the study of more familiar big things. As a kid I was also fascinated by tales of exploration of the New World, as well as those of fantasy worlds. I was then sad that the age of surveying new landmasses on earth was over, and that human extraterrestrial adventures are unlikely to happen within our lifetimes. It seemed everything was discovered already. But that could hardly be further from the truth -- all that is necessary to begin one's own Age of Exploration is a new approach or perspective, and a healthy does of imagination. Since reality has conjured far more than the human mind alone ever could, science yields a way to write stories much wilder than fiction. All one needs to access the alien world of microbes around (and inside) them is a shift of scale by simple glass sphere.
I'm currently finishing up my undergraduate degree in Vancouver and in transition career-wise, hopefully to end up in graduate school soon. I was born in Russia (and speak the language) and spent most of my life in US and Canada. In addition to protists, I'm fascinated by evolution, including that of culture and languages, diversity and biology of cells and how they self-organise, linguistics and anthropology, particularly of the less talked-about cultures, sociology of science and plenty of totally random things that snag my attention.
Banner image was kindly post-processed and enhanced by my friend: an accomplished comic artist who goes by Achiru.

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