Comments on: Peering in the pond, part 2: Signs of life

By: themarvelousinnature

themarvelousinnature — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:08:14 +0000

I imagine it would be pretty easy to please, Liam!

By: liam

liam — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:31:46 +0000

i found a small amphipod “sideswimmer” and it is now living happily in my fish tank :)

By: themarvelousinnature

themarvelousinnature — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:55:47 +0000

Susannah: Your comment got dumped in my spam filter, for some reason. Good luck with the water strider prey - let me know what you find!

Lavenderbay: Great comparisons! I certainly hadn’t thought of them like that. The copepods are easy to miss unless you look closely, and carefully, but should be in most still or slow water bodies (including ditch water), hopefully you can find some. :)

Tom: Probably if we had a microscope I wouldn’t've thought of trying to photograph the copepods with my camera, either, but since I was lacking that equipment, but still wanted a pic for the blog, I figured I’d give it a try! I got the impression from my reading that amphipods referred to a group of organisms (like copepods does) but that the label sideswimmer/scud applied to this particular group of amphipods? I’d have to go back and check that.

Dave: The red water mites are fairly common, and given their bright colouring, rather conspicuous, so they’re easy to spot. They are sometimes seen on the wet ground beside the water’s edge, but definitely seem to be more at home in the water.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:20:27 +0000

Found your blog via Wrennaisance! Interesting post. I think I saw one of those red mites along a local river (on land) last year. Are they common? It looked like a fleck of scarlet felt! Very catchy!

By: Tom @ Ohio Nature

Tom @ Ohio Nature — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:10:17 +0000

Wow- I never have even though of trying to photograph a copepod with a regular camera! Great pic. Reminds me of counting them on a slide through a microscope in grad school! The scud things, I’ve always called amphipods. Very cool little creatures.

By: lavenderbay

lavenderbay — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:06:35 +0000

I like your idea of the turkey baster for picking up tiny interesting individuals. Come to think of it, from your description, it sounds as though flatworms get their dinner with natural, built-in turkey basters of their own.
I’ll have to keep an eye out for copepods — they’re new to me, and kinda cute. The female looks like the Starship Enterprise. :)

By: Susannah

Susannah — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:19:10 +0000

Fascinating! I have tried that with seawater, but never with ordinary dirty pond water. Once it stops raining enough, I think I’ll go dredge our puddle where I found water striders last year; maybe I’ll be lucky enough to find their prey.