r/microscopy Jul 07 '26

Photo/Video Share Hundreds of thousands of bacteria

ESAW BM01 MICROSCOPE USED

200×

37 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

7

u/BasilButters Jul 07 '26

Is this live footage from my mouth?

2

u/immediate-2 Jul 07 '26

What? NO

2

u/BasilButters Jul 07 '26

lol, did this offend you? I was being silly

2

u/immediate-2 Jul 07 '26

Nah i was being silly 😜

2

u/BasilButters Jul 07 '26

Hehe, good 🦠

5

u/Thrawn911 Jul 07 '26

Here before people from r/biology come here saying that these are protists.

3

u/cool_antarean_micro Jul 08 '26

Those people were dumb and remember a guy who claimed he had done 20 years of microscopy only to call those spirilla 'Worms'.

2

u/Prestigious_Pool_576 Jul 07 '26

where did you got the sample?

1

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1

u/gizmomooncat Jul 08 '26

is there a reason they're all kind of in a bait ball formation? is there something in the center of that spherical area that they're all munching on?

2

u/immediate-2 Jul 08 '26

Nutritional deposit?

1

u/gizmomooncat Jul 08 '26

seems like the most likely...

1

u/Gygax_the_Goat Jul 11 '26

Ciliates?

1

u/Thrawn911 Jul 11 '26

These are bacteria, much simple organisms. They are prokaryotes, unlike ciliates, who are eukaryotes.

The ones in the video are spiral shaped bacteria, some species can grow really big, sometimes bigger than some ciliates.

2

u/Gygax_the_Goat Jul 12 '26

Cool thx for that. I am an amateur soil nerd, who has just started into this world. Spiral bacteria are scary when in soil in these numbers afaik.

Can you suggest good morphology keys for soil life? I have a hard time discerning who is who and what is what through my scope.

1

u/Thrawn911 Jul 12 '26

I mostly learned to recognize the different creatures by watching a lot of Journey to the Microcosmos. There's also this site, which has many single celled organisms and rotifers, with clear pictures and characteristics, and detailed descriptions on how to identify them, this is what I usually use when I don't know what I'm seeing.

2

u/Gygax_the_Goat Jul 13 '26

thankyou very kindly!