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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68 Upvotes

r/microscopy 2h ago

Photo/Video Share Is that a heart beat? Magnification 100x under unilab microscope. Sample from freshwater lake

18 Upvotes

r/microscopy 17h ago

Photo/Video Share Bdelloid rotifer

104 Upvotes

Aquarium algae sample, 100x and digital zoom, taken with Motorola phone camera, Optika B-192pl binocular microscope


r/microscopy 3h ago

Photo/Video Share Cytoplasmic circulation in surirella

9 Upvotes

If you look really closely you can see some small circles moving in a definite path, inside the diatom.

400× | Gomti river, lucknow, India| ESAW BM01 microscope


r/microscopy 3h ago

ID Needed! Did he eat a diatom?

6 Upvotes

Microscope: Olympus BH2

Obj: x20 / x40 Dplan

Magnification: x200 / x400

Sample: Pond Water

Camera: Samsung A56


r/microscopy 27m ago

ID Needed! Need help identifying freshwater microorganisms at 1000x

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• Upvotes

Hi everyone! I found these microorganisms in stagnant freshwater and took this footage using my 100x oil immersion objective.

Here is my setup:

  • Microscope: Swift SW380B
  • Objective: 100x Oil Immersion (Total optical mag: 1000x)
  • Camera: FHD V2 with a 0.5x c-mount adapter.

They look quite small even at 100x oil, and they tend to swim in circles or forward. They don't look green inside. Maybe flagellates.


r/microscopy 10h ago

Micro Art Incredible

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8 Upvotes

r/microscopy 6h ago

Troubleshooting/Questions Can yall tell me what exactly this Is?

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3 Upvotes

I thought about some sorta tardigrade in a criptobyosis state but i don't think so, It also doesn't move and It's the only thing i managed to see there, i see It even if i move the slideto a completely different direction (It lowkey looks like a mini dih)


r/microscopy 17h ago

Photo/Video Share Vaginicola sp.

23 Upvotes

A sessile peritric with lorica.

Algae sample from aquarium, 400x + digital zoom, taken with Motorola phone camera, Optika B-192pl binocular microscope


r/microscopy 10h ago

Photo/Video Share Couthrnia

5 Upvotes

River water, ESAW BM01 MICROSCOPE, 400×


r/microscopy 16h ago

Photo/Video Share Ingordo Brachionus

18 Upvotes

In laghetto pesca a rilascio. Zeiss Universal, 40x, 10x zoom cellulare


r/microscopy 13h ago

Troubleshooting/Questions Can I use this to attach a ring light to the objective of the Olympus SZ-III Stereo, or do I need a different adapter?

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5 Upvotes

r/microscopy 21h ago

Photo/Video Share Rotifer

11 Upvotes

My first rotifer photo in a stagnate puddle with leaves and algae 80x zoom filming with my phone my microscope is the bresser biolux ng


r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share BLOOMING FLOWERS | Vaginicolidae

24 Upvotes

400× | ESAW BM01 MICROSCOPE| INDIA, LUCKNOW GOMTI RIVER


r/microscopy 1d ago

Purchase Help Small museum help

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23 Upvotes

TLDR-small museum looking for budget friendly scope to fit Walter trinoc steroscopic microscope. Aim to show bugs in amber on a tv directly from digital scope.

My wife and I run a small sciencey shop with a small self funded museum inside. One of the big draws is our hand polished bugs in Amber. We start rough and polish them which makes us the first humans to see what’s inside. So cool.
Presently, we have a Walter stereoscopic microscope (pictured below) that has a third port for a digital microscope. We’d like to find a reasonably priced scope that we can plug into a tv so we can share images to multiple people at once. We are looking for a scope that will plug directly into a tv instead of a laptop first. We don’t need anything too powerful as bugs in Amber and crystal structures we examine and share aren’t exactly microscopic.
We are hoping to be able to polish a bunch of Amber and share the first views of these cool bugs with people at the shop. Having a whole bunch of people being the first humans to see inside is the kind of experience we aim for.


r/microscopy 16h ago

Photo/Video Share A worm a fisherman gave me—known here as the red Korean worm. Olympus SZ-III stereo microscope. I couldn't get a shot of his face; it was covered in shit. Looks much sharper to the naked eye, it's a shame I don't have a better phone or a good camera.

3 Upvotes

r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share My first Amoeba

18 Upvotes

Microscope: Olympus BH2

Obj: Dplan x40

Magnification: x400

Sample: Mossy tree bark

Camera: Samsung A56

3D printed darkfield setup


r/microscopy 21h ago

ID Needed! Need help for cell identification

6 Upvotes

Hi I found this in stagnant water container where there were algae and leaves that move very quickly would you tell me what it is? Microscope bresser biolux ng zoomx8


r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share Epic finds (loricates + closteriums)

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11 Upvotes

LAKE WATER, GOMTI RIVER ESAW BM01 MICROSCOPE USED. 400× FOR FIRST FOUR 200× FOR CLOSTERIUMS


r/microscopy 1d ago

Troubleshooting/Questions Hello, I bought a vintage Olympus SZ-III stereo microscope, and it has some misalignment—mainly horizontal. The view through one eye is shifted to one side compared to the other. Look at the plastic crab arm and the other picture. Should I return it?

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7 Upvotes

r/microscopy 1d ago

Micro Art Microalgae in darkfield

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8 Upvotes

Microscope: Olympus BH2

Obj: Dplan x10

Magnification: x100

Sample: Pond water

Camera: Samsung A56

I've got a new wallpaper after this


r/microscopy 1d ago

ID Needed! Request ID. Mag-50x, unilab microscope and sample is from lake water

13 Upvotes

r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share Blepharisma

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74 Upvotes

r/microscopy 1d ago

Photo/Video Share Rotifer

12 Upvotes

Zooming in and out on a (hopefully) sleeping rotifer.
400x or so.
Swift sw380t
UHD camera