Well this is embarrassing...

As the title says. This is embarrassing. It seems that after doing my make up observation, I forgot to do a blog. I needed to get another picture because I only had 4. Other than there being an absolute ton of worms, I found it hard to find organisms. I saw a few Cyclops sp. and and a bunch of Euchlanis sp. I did end up finding this critter right here though.

It's a Gloeotrichia sp. it's a blue green algae and it was growing on one of my mosses.

Well this has been sufficiently embarrassing, and I'm doing this for my report. Marisol, if you're reading this, I'll take any credit you give me. Hopefully not a 0 but I understand .

Organisms? Organisms where did you go?

Ladies and gentlemen and botany lovers alike, I'm saddened to say that I have let you all down by missing an observation last week. I fell to an incumbent sickness that crippled me to bed. My love for these micro organisms, unfortunately, couldn't out weigh the micro organisms that were bringing my health down and my productivity to an astounding halt. Once again, my deepest regards go out to my followers (or should I say follower... cough cough Marisol).

Any way, I will say that I got a chance to run by the lab this week and see what was cooking in the waters of Atlantis. Also, I've been informed that I can make up the last observation tomorrow!!! I get another week with my organisms! Best news ever or best news ever? Well, without further adieu, I bring you the next installment of: Atlantis, the life of a microaquarium.

In lab on Tuesday, we got to see some organisms that moved around with flagella. Flagella are cool whip-like tails that help the organism move through a medium. Well, in my encounters with Atlantis I stumbled across an organism with a flagellum!! I looked it up and it is called a Stentor (Thorp 2013). Which looked like a big horn with a really long tail.

Despite the sweet find early on, I noticed that things had simmered down significantly. I noticed that the sludge build up had increased and the mosses' foliage color had been dimming even more. Plus, I could only see a few more organisms here and there. Where did they go? I miss them already! I'll be making another observation tomorrow, and I'll let you know if they're alright. Hopefully, all the non photosynthetic organisms didn't eat everyone...

With great disdain and displeasure, this is Hunter Herrin signing off.

Who threw the party?

Welcome back botany lovers! Another week is in the dust, and the time has come to brief you all on the update of Atlantis.

This week was an especially unique week because a food pellet was added to Atlantis on Friday, October 25th. This added a boost to the micro organisms hiding in the plant foliage. It draws them out to feed.

When I observed on October 31, the first thing I did was observe where the pellet was added. The pellet food had organisms all around it. However, the most notable features were hiding inside of the food pellet. I could see the pellet moving back and forth and I knew something was inside. I kept adjusting my microscope to try and see it, but no such luck. I began to wait to see if the organism would come out. Then, low and behold I could see through the pellet food to see that a large clear worm was eating the food. It was gigantic. It expanded the entire length of the pellet. That was when I realized there wasn't one worm but two! They were eating on opposite sides of the pellet, but coming towards each other. I wondered what would happen when they met. Would they fight to the death? Would they share each others food? Would they become best friends and go on a date? Was I thinking way too far into it? Yes, yes I was. When they met, they immediately retreated back to their respective sides and ate else where. All that watching and waiting for nothing. Worms are dumb. Pretty cool, but dumb.

After the worms, I decided to stroll through the rest of the micro world. I wanted to see if things had changed since the last time I left it. As soon as I got to the foliage, I realized that Atlantis had changed a lot more than I had expected, and not for the better. There was what looked like a light yellow sludge all over the moss's foliage, and a lot of the foliage color looked washed out. There were more spots of sludge in the open space, too. It was like these organisms threw a party and forgot to clean up before I got home. But, all in all, the organisms seemed happy in their filth.

Next week I'll have more pictures up of the now dirtied Atlantis. But, until next time, I'm Hunter Herrin and as my blog says, I love botany. Deuces.