Whenever I spot an amoeba in my sample I always take out my polarizing filters first because I LIVE for sparkly amoebae (as you might’ve seen in my last amoebae posts)! When there aren’t much shiny material in the amoeba my second option is to take out the phase contrast which, as you can see, gives awesome results 🤩
Free-living amoeba, just like this one, can be found all over the world, from freshwater to marine habitats, ponds, lakes, and even small temporary accumulations of water on soil after abundant rain. They mainly feed on bacteria , algae, yeasts, fungi and other micro-organisms. They can even feed on other amoebae😬! They’re known to control populations of bacteria as they prey on them, which make them pretty important on an ecological point of view.
They crawl and eat with the use of their pseudopods and are known to engulf the entirety of their preys as they’re giving them a big deathly hug 🤗 Since they’re none-swimmers, they’re mostly found on surface interfaces like between water and plants, water and animals, water and soils and even between water and air, like when there’s a pellicule of bacteria that forms on top of my samples; that’s where those amoebae at, but you can find some on aquatic plants or at the bottom of the sample jar. These interfaces are usually rich in dissolved organic nutriments, which bacteria feed on, which attract amoebae
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Amoebae form a large groupe with enormous morphological diversity. Their size can be as small as a couple micrometers to a few millimeters in diameter. Some amoebae possess hard shells they either build with materials found in their environment or materials they secrete themselves. Even if a couple amoebae are planktonic, most live on surfaces or sediments.
My amoeba goal this summer is to find the famous Vampyrella, the amoeba that sucks the content of algal cells like a vegan vampire 😂 sounds like we’re going to get along well 👀
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