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Phase contrast micrograph showing clearly one contractile vacuole with five filled channels.
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Paramecium (aurelia) (par-a-mee-see-um) is a very familiar genus of ciliates. They eat bacteria and have the mouth recessed in a buccal cavity, and the cell is often shaped with a scoop leading to the mouth. There are cilia all over the body with a caudal tuft of longer cilia at the back of the body. Usually with a layer of extrusomes (trichocysts) under the cell surface and a large oval macronucleus. Contractile vacuoles star-shaped. This species is P. aurelia, one of the smaller spindle-shaped (morpho)species. The (morpho) species is best distinguished by the presence of two small micronuclei pressed up against the macronucleus. Phase contrast.
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Campillos, Andalusia, Spain
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Herrera de Soria, Castille and Leon, Spain
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Cabanas De Sayago, Castille and Leon, Spain
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Caada del Hoyo, Castilla-La Mancha, Espaa
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Paramecium (aurelia) (par-a-mee-see-um) is a very familiar genus of ciliates and this (morpho) species is best distinguished by the presence of two small micronuclei pressed up against the macronucleus. They can be seen here to the north of the nucleus. Differential interference contrast.
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Villoslada de Cameros, La Rioja, Spain
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Ribadelago, Castille and Leon, Spain
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Caada del Hoyo, Castilla-La Mancha, Espaa
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Paramecium (aurelia) (par-a-mee-see-um) is a very familiar genus of ciliates and this (morpho) species is best distinguished by the presence of two small micronuclei pressed up against the macronucleus. This image shows the peniculi or compound ciliary organelles in the mouth. Phase contrast.
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Herrera de Soria, Castille and Leon, Spain
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Paramecium (aurelia) (par-a-mee-see-um) is a very familiar genus of ciliates and this (morpho) species is best distinguished by the presence of two small micronuclei pressed up against the macronucleus. They can be seen here to the north of the nucleus. Phase contrast.
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Castille and Leon, Spain
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Ribadelago de Franco, Castilla y Len, Espaa
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Cabanas De Sayago, Castille and Leon, Spain
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This cell was encountered around the margins of the alkaline Mono Lake. Paramecium is not known to occur in extreme habitats, but as the marginal regions of the pond receive run-off from the adjacent land, we may presume that it lived in a less extreme micro-habitat. It does, however, seem to be eating Picocystis - a common picophytoplankton organism in Mono Lake. Some extrusomes have been expelled from the central region of the cell. Phase contrast micrograph.
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Herrera de Soria, Castille and Leon, Spain
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A Veiga, Galicia, Spain
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Villoslada de Cameros, La Rioja, Spain
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This cell has been fed on stained bacteria and indian ink to monitor the rate of food vacuole formation. Oh, and we made a jigsaw puzzle out of the picture.
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Mahide, Castille and Leon, Spain