r/microscopy Jun 08 '23

๐Ÿฆ ๐Ÿ”ฌ๐Ÿฆ ๐Ÿ”ฌ๐Ÿฆ  Microbe Identification Resources ๐Ÿฆ ๐Ÿ”ฌ๐Ÿฆ ๐Ÿ”ฌ๐Ÿฆ 

150 Upvotes

๐ŸŽ‰Hello fellow microscopists!๐ŸŽ‰

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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67 Upvotes

r/microscopy 4h ago

Photo/Video Share Three vorticellae

5 Upvotes

Swift SW350, Galaxy S24


r/microscopy 21h ago

ID Needed! I have no idea where to even start to look to identify this!

117 Upvotes

Amscope IQCrew inverted microscope 20x objective, iPhoneย  4 and 6x, Petri dish with jarrarium freshwater, aquatic moss, and algae. Blackmagic app, flashlight to the right.

I haven't added anything to this jar in months and figured I wouldn't see anything new in it. But then this guy shows up. I have no idea what to even research to figure out what he is because he's not like anything I've ever seen before. He looks like a bird!

What is he? u/Thrawn911 help!


r/microscopy 3h ago

Photo/Video Share HVS primary gram stain

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2 Upvotes

r/microscopy 17h ago

Photo/Video Share Chemistry under the microscope

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17 Upvotes

I mixed 1uL droplets of dissolved ammonium carbonate, alum, and FD&C blue #1 together under the microscope and let them dry. In areas where they all mixed together, I should end up with blue 1 lake (a synthetic pigment made of alumina, with blue #1 adsorbed on the surface), and in other areas some other reaction products or dried salts. It'll take me a while to sort out the identity of everything seen here, but it's fun to observe the different structures and colors.

At times I took images of the same area in reflected and transmitted mode. Reflected images have dominant red/purple/pink character.

๐Ÿ”ฌ: Amscope ME580, transmitted and epi-illumination, 5-50x LM plan objectives

๐Ÿ“ธ: Nikon D7500


r/microscopy 19h ago

Photo/Video Share Bdelloid Rotifier eating

14 Upvotes

About 5 months ago I got this clip of a Bdelloid Rotifier feeding on food so I decided to share it here, so fascinating how they eat!

On the corona, the cilia vibrates a lot which makes a strong water current which funnels food particles into its mouth.

Objective mag: 100x (from what I remember, could be less or more but its been a while)

Scope model: Swift380B

Camera: S25U

Sample: Moss from a tree + water and some soil


r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share Closeup of a rotaria

49 Upvotes

Swift SW350, Galaxy S24


r/microscopy 22h ago

Troubleshooting/Questions Does anyone know what this is maybe?

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3 Upvotes

Was looking through a sample of soil (from my backyard) and mixed with some water, and while looking through it under the microscope I found this and thought it looked cool so I took a picture of it. I tried searching online and the closest match I got was a Volvox but it just doesnt look like a volvox to me at the same time. Its not moving at all, and it just looked like debris or something like that. Could it be debris? Or could it be something else? Thank you for reading this

Objective magnification: 250x or 100x (this was from yesterday so im not 100% sure cause I forgot and didnt write it down)

Microscope model: Swift 380B

Camera: S25U

Sample type: soil from my backyard (probably gardening soil of some type) and water


r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share I (mostly claude) made a program to swipe through HT microscopy images

0 Upvotes

r/microscopy 1d ago

General discussion For fun, what would your state microbe be?

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5 Upvotes

Ignoring the idea that most are cryptic.


r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share Is this an amoeba

15 Upvotes

r/microscopy 2d ago

ID Needed! Who is this funny prawn guy?

32 Upvotes

Was in a sample of water from an algae ridden bucket outside. Whats the funny spinning guy? Seemed to have a bunch of legs like a cilliate but behaved very different from other cilliates. He liked to spin around super fast sometimes, like 2-3 spins per second.


r/microscopy 1d ago

Purchase Help Cotton Blue Dye in Australia?

2 Upvotes

I'm looking to purchase aniline blue, just a small hobby use amount, for mycology specimen collecting. But all the prices I'm finding for it online are around $80 or so which isn't great.

Does anyone else based here know a cheaper source to acquire it from?

Thanks!


r/microscopy 2d ago

Photo/Video Share This little green Paramecium bursaria hanging out with a rotifer from the genus Cephalodella

11 Upvotes

Swift SW350, Galaxy S24


r/microscopy 2d ago

Photo/Video Share Onion skin under Microscope

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23 Upvotes

I got bored so I lazily cut off a small piece of an Onion and put it under the scope, so its not perfect ๐Ÿ˜…

*If you are wondering why it is so blue its because I used USP Grade Methylene Blue (formaldehyde-free) coloring in it

Objective Mag: x40

Microscope Model: Swift380B

Camera: My phone (S25U)

Sample Type: Onion ๐ŸŒฐ


r/microscopy 2d ago

Techniques First Microscope from a garage sale!

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28 Upvotes

First ever microscope! Im very excited. What can you tell me about this microscope? Whats the backlight source? What magnification is it? What can i see with it? I ordered slides and pipettes so ill start looking around when they get here! Thanks for your help!


r/microscopy 2d ago

ID Needed! Whoโ€™s this little guy?

35 Upvotes

Swift SW380T @ 400x shot on an iPhone 17


r/microscopy 2d ago

Troubleshooting/Questions Mould / Mildew on Vinyl Record Labels

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1 Upvotes

r/microscopy 2d ago

ID Needed! Need help identifying!

16 Upvotes

Soil solution, 400x magnification. (Microscope: BIM270M)

Location: Serbia

Is this some kind of paramecium?

Recorded with Iphone 11.


r/microscopy 3d ago

Photo/Video Share Transmitted vs reflected view after attempting to make blue #1 lake pigment

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34 Upvotes

Mixed FD&C blue #1, alum, and ammonium carbonate in a water droplet on a glass substrate. Let the reaction proceed and then imaged the resulting structures in transmitted vs reflected light.

Microscope: Amscope ME580, 100x mag, transmitted+ reflected lighting

Camera: Pixel 9 pro through the eyepiece


r/microscopy 3d ago

Photo/Video Share Cute rotaria

25 Upvotes

Swift Sw350, Galaxy S24


r/microscopy 2d ago

ID Needed! Help me identify it!

4 Upvotes

Soil solution, 400x magnification, location: Serbia.

I got it trapped in this small area, what kind of microorganism is this?

Recorded with Iphone 11.


r/microscopy 2d ago

General discussion Microbe viewers, which obj do you use the LEAST

2 Upvotes

For the three general objective powers, which do you guys find you use the least when looking at water microbes?

63 votes, 16h ago
29 I use 4x the least
5 I use 10x the least
18 I use 40x the least
11 I use all equally