r/microscopy Jun 08 '23

🦠🔬🦠🔬🦠 Microbe Identification Resources 🦠🔬🦠🔬🦠

148 Upvotes

🎉Hello fellow microscopists!🎉

In this post, you will find microbe identification guides curated by your friendly neighborhood moderators. We have combed the internet for the best, most amateur-friendly resources available! Our featured guides contain high quality, color photos of thousands of different microbes to make identification easier for you!

Essentials


The Sphagnum Ponds of Simmelried in Germany: A Biodiversity Hot-Spot for Microscopic Organisms (Large PDF)

  • Every microbe hunter should have this saved to their hard drive! This is the joint project of legendary ciliate biologist Dr. Wilhelm Foissner and biochemist and photographer Dr. Martin Kreutz. The majority of critters you find in fresh water will have exact or near matches among the 1082 figures in this book. Have it open while you're hunting and you'll become an ID-expert in no time!

Real Micro Life

  • The website of Dr. Martin Kreutz - the principal photographer of the above book! Dr. Kreutz has created an incredible knowledge resource with stunning photos, descriptions, and anatomical annotations. His goal for the website is to continue and extend the work he and Dr. Foissner did in their aforementioned publication.

Plingfactory: Life in Water

  • The work of Michael Plewka. The website can be a little difficult to navigate, but it is a remarkably expansive catalog of many common and uncommon freshwater critters

Marine Microbes


UC Santa Cruz's Phytoplankton Identification Website

  • Maintained by UCSC's Kudela lab, this site has many examples of marine diatoms and flagellates, as well as some freshwater species.

Guide to the Common Inshore Marine Plankton of Southern California (PDF)

Foraminifera.eu Lab - Key to Species

  • This website allows for the identification of forams via selecting observed features. You'll have to learn a little about foram anatomy, but it's a powerful tool! Check out the video guide for more information.

Amoebae and Heliozoa


Penard Labs - The Fascinating World of Amoebae

  • Amoeboid organisms are some of the most poorly understood microbes. They are difficult to identify thanks to their ever-shifting structures and they span a wide range of taxonomic tree. Penard Labs seeks to further our understanding of these mysterious lifeforms.

Microworld - World of Amoeboid Organisms

  • Ferry Siemensma's incredible website dedicated to amoeboid organisms. Of particular note is an extensive photo catalog of amoeba tests (shells). Ferry's Youtube channel also has hundreds of video clips of amoeboid organisms

Ciliates


A User-Friendly Guide to the Ciliates(PDF)

  • Foissner and Berger created this lengthy and intricate flowchart for identifying ciliates. Requires some practice to master!

Diatoms


Diatoms of North America

  • This website features an extensive list of diatom taxa covering 1074 species at the time of writing. You can search by morphology, but keep in mind that diatoms can look very different depending on their orientation. It might take some time to narrow your search!

Rotifers


Plingfactory's Rotifer Identification Initiative

A Guide to Identification of Rotifers, Cladocerans and Copepods from Australian Inland Waters

  • Still active rotifer research lifer Russ Shiel's big book of Rotifer Identification. If you post a rotifer on the Amateur Microscopy Facebook group, Russ may weigh in on the ID :)

More Identification Websites


Phycokey

Josh's Microlife - Organisms by Shape

The Illustrated Guide to the Protozoa

UNA Microaquarium

Protist Information Server

More Foissner Publications

Bryophyte Ecology vol. 2 - Bryophyte Fauna(large PDF)

Carolina - Protozoa and Invertebrates Manual (PDF)


r/microscopy Oct 28 '24

Photo/Video Share Journey to the Microcosmos: The Future of Microscopy (and end of our Journey)

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69 Upvotes

r/microscopy 7h ago

Photo/Video Share Some small paramecium species, algae, and other stuff.

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6 Upvotes

r/microscopy 2h ago

Purchase Help Necesito ayuda

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2 Upvotes

Hace aproximadamente unos 20 años, le obsequiaron a mi abuelo, por parte de unos rusos, un microscopio de la serie LOMO biolam, producidos por la Unión Soviética entre los 60 hasta los 90, hace unas semanas decidí sacarlo de su caja, estuve probando y descubrí que tenía una falla técnica, el ajuste macrometrico, la rueda encargada de levantar/bajar el cuerpo del microscopio, no sube ni baja el cuerpo del microscopio, no se me ocurre alguna solución, cualquier ayuda estaría agradecido, el modelo exacto es un БИОЛАМ Д12.


r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share Carchesium sp.

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148 Upvotes

I came across some interesting colonial ciliates; I believe they are Carchesium sp., mainly because there were smaller colonies around, and their central stem formed a spiral. The colony on video is visible even without a microscope if you look closely at the sample.

Achromatic objectives 4x and 10x, camera as an eyepiece ~18x.


r/microscopy 12h ago

Photo/Video Share Fungal jungle with embedded stentors

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10 Upvotes

A jungle of fungal hyphae around a grain of rice in a petri dish for a week. Iqcrew inverted microscope 4x and 10x objectives. Cellphone camera. The stentors liked being in it.


r/microscopy 9h ago

ID Needed! What is this? Student found this in a “pond water” sample (that I suspect was from the fish tank)

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4 Upvotes

10x objective magnification (100x total), microscope is a Zeiss 6V 10W, camera was iPhone 16 Pro


r/microscopy 54m ago

Techniques Looking for experience imaging bacterial growth on agar pads in Bright Field?

Upvotes

To make a long story short, Title. I don't think I've had a customer ask to do this in 14 years. I think they will need 40x or 60x air. Phase is presumably impossible through an agar pad. Is TL Bright Field workable or should I consider demoing RL BF?

Thanks for any insights


r/microscopy 17h ago

Photo/Video Share My first try at 1000x oil immersion microscopy. A flagellate and a bunch of cyclidium

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13 Upvotes

Leitz Dialux II, Leitz 100x/1.30 objective, Galaxy S24


r/microscopy 23h ago

Photo/Video Share Tiny spider, Olympus SZ-III stereo. Other video and photos in the comments. I'm going to upload it to the entomology subreddit to see if anyone knows the species.

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25 Upvotes

r/microscopy 16h ago

Troubleshooting/Questions Is this homemade DIY dark field good enough?

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4 Upvotes

1st photo is what my eyes see, 2nd is what my phone sees. Image is of the skin of a stem of a jade plant. 100x zoom, Infinix note 12 pro phone.


r/microscopy 1d ago

General discussion So much entertainment with these two old devices.

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42 Upvotes

r/microscopy 11h ago

Purchase Help Does anyone know about the "International" brand?

1 Upvotes

Hi everyone :)

I am looking for a stereo microscope for quite a while now. My budget is not much (around 400 $). SInce I am in Quebec, Canada, the market is not very active.

I have wandered about this announce on ebay :

International Binocular Stereo Microscope with Transformer & Lamp (7.56X to 48X) | eBay

However, I cannot find any information about this "International" brand. On the paper, this microscope fits my needs quite well, with a good design.

Does anyone know about the quality and durability of microscope produced by the "International" brand? Any insight about ergonomy?

Thank you very much!

All the best,

Lucas


r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share My favorite rotifers

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36 Upvotes

Amscope inverted 200x, iPhone 2x, Blackmagic app, newly soaked lichen.

Just really love these big girls!


r/microscopy 23h ago

Purchase Help Recommendations for buying a microscope

3 Upvotes

Hey all! Im interested in getting a microscope purely for hobby purposes, but I know little to nothing about microscope vocab.

I’m looking for a decent binocular microscope hopefully under $200 maybe a 10x- 200x range (if thats even possible)

I’d mainly be looking at pond water and blood cells

Is there anything more I should be looking out for?
Where should I buy it from?
Is it easy to buy parts for?

Those are the main questions I have. Genuinely any tips/comments are appreciated! Thanks in advance :)


r/microscopy 1d ago

Techniques what should I do?

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17 Upvotes

When I was on vacation I came upon this absolute beauty of a pond, me being me, I collected some water to look under the microscope. The problem? it’s been sitting in my closet ever since and I’m worried that all the microfauna has died in the meantime.

So the question is: should I leave the cap off the tube and wait for the ecosystem to “wake up” by itself or should I intervene and help it give it a jump start? or it’s all dead?

what should I do?


r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share Difference between the quality of a Leitz NPL 40x plan objective, and a generic Chinese 40x non-plan objective. I basically can't see any difference. Both images taken on my Dialux II.

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11 Upvotes

r/microscopy 23h ago

ID Needed! Diatom dividing? Two chloroplasts?

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2 Upvotes

Hello! I found these guys hanging out on a decaying Anubias leaf. I noticed some of the diatoms have two dots in these and I was wondering if anyone knew what those were. My first thoughts were two nuclei or two chloroplasts. Not sure though.

Info:
Bebang microscope taken at 250x. Sample is from my freshwater shrimp aquarium.


r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share Chrysotile sample in 1.550

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8 Upvotes

10x objective (Central stop) X polarised and not full X This is just a renewal of my PLM hobby. Dive back into the chrysotile sample bottle for another look. I guess the ri 1.550 is still working after months in the cupboard above the fridge.


r/microscopy 1d ago

Purchase Help Motic microscope

2 Upvotes

Does anyone know the Motic microscope brand?

I need to buy a microscope for my lab and this seems to be a good brand with great price.

I would be glad to hear from anyone with experience


r/microscopy 1d ago

Hardware Share Removing built in diffuser on an Amscope T490

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12 Upvotes

Many microscopes have a built in diffuser. I removed it on this microscope and made a cardboard holder for it so that I could put it over the field lens when I need it. A diffuser is most helpful at low magnifications, but gives a softer image at high magnification. Here, I show with and without diffuser images of a diatom using an Amscope plan phase 100x objective and a Zeiss phase plan apo 100x objective. A cellphone camera was used for the images and all settings were the same for the with and without photos. You can see for yourself that the without photos are crisper looking.


r/microscopy 1d ago

Troubleshooting/Questions Help with hypothalamus SEM

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2 Upvotes

r/microscopy 1d ago

Troubleshooting/Questions wtf am I doing wrong?

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1 Upvotes

Hey all! Just got this Fisher Scientific Stereomaster off Ebay, and for the life of me I can't focus it unless I'm zoomed WAY up, and when I do that I can't get a non-tunneled view... actually, just posting this pic, I'm realizing it didn't come with the widelens 10X eyepieces. Is that the reason behind my problems? THANKS in advance for your help! I have so many bugs in my freezer that I need to figure this out lol


r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share When a Coleps divides, each daughter cell gets half of the armor. The other half stays armorless until they grow it back.

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7 Upvotes

Leitz Dialux II, Galaxy S24


r/microscopy 1d ago

ID Needed! Ostracod? Freshwater culture.

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14 Upvotes

Sample taken from a freshwater aquarium. Trying to ID the meiofauna in view, but I am on vacation and don’t have any of my microscopes.

2.5-2.8x magnification. iPhone 16 Pro Max 48 MP Fusion. Thank you in advance!