Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I had a cup of planaria swimming around and today I took a look and the planaria looked pale and dead, so I usde a dropping pipette to suck up a planaria.and dropped it onto a slide. I laid a coverslip over the planaria and it disinegrated. I looked through the microscope at 40x and they're were hundreds of oval shaped organisms zipping around. do you have an idea what these are?

Hi. The rod shaped organisms could have been bacteria.

This website gives tips for keeping a planaria culture alive:
http://www.voicenet.com/%7Eginette/plantxt.htm

Hope that helps!

Jennifer

Hi there,

I'm not sure if you controlled for this, but sometimes laying a coverslip directly on coverglass can squish cells and kill them. I've seen this with macrophages, so I'm sure it can happen with planaria. Have you tried a hanging drop or chamberslide method instead?

As for the swimming ovals, it sounds like it could be paramecium. Here's a link to a picture for reference:

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/art ... ount2.html

But that's just my first guess.

Best of luck,
Linh

Hi,

These organisms I was looking at were not bacteria. Bacteria are way too small. they looked pretty "big" at 40x.

They are not paramecium either. I've seen paramecium.

The organisms were almost exactly egg shaped and moved around alot and sometimes doing 360 degree turns.

They might have come from within the planaria when it disinegrated.

I'm trying to figure it out with my biology teacher from whom I got the planaria.

Coinjunky2

Hi there,

Sorry the oval shaped organisms weren't bacteria or paramecium. Is there any way you can take a picture? Otherwise, it's rather hard to guess wha tit might be.

Another idea might be to do a Google image search on planaria. Maybe you'll see the ovals you're talking about.

Do you think you squished the planaria when you placed the coverslip on the slide? Have you tried doing a hanging drop suspension instead? Or even used a chamber slide of some sort (this would require an inverted microscope)?

Best of luck,
Linh