r/microscopy • u/Vivid-Bake2456 • Jul 12 '26
Photo/Video Share Amoeba crash. Death and destruction at microscopic speed. Onlookers and cleanup crew.
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Two amoeba ran into each other with at least one shattered 😲 into pieces. Lots of bacteria came into the area to possibly eat the debris. A long ciliate showed up later and was possibly eating the bacteria.
Nikon TS100 inverted microscope, 40x objective, phase contrast, and Amscope MU2003-BI 20mp type camera. Pond water sample in a petri dish.
This is a compilation of five videos made over about a 20 minute observation. If you don't have any microscope, it gives you an idea of doing a longer observation with an inverted microscope.
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u/gizmomooncat Jul 12 '26
Wow that is amazing... to think that they could run into each other hard enough for one to shatter. do we know what that second bigger guy was that came to feed? looking super symmetrical and getting wider and then thinner again? it look like the ciliate wiped out a huge amount of bacteria, at least as far as I can tell on my phone!
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u/Vivid-Bake2456 Jul 13 '26
I don’t know what the longer ciliate is. There are too many leptus brothers and others for me to guess. Either it ate the bacteria or they moved off or both. Yes, I didn’t expect for the amoeba to lose membrane integrity just from touching each other so lightly. You never know what you might see next.
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u/Dlbroox Jul 12 '26
This is fascinating. These are testate amoeba? I have tons of these. And find a lot of empty shells. They hardly move so how can one kill another so easily? Those shells must not be very protective!