Midge spotting 10/30/08

My observation of the microaquarium was a very interesting one. I observed many different micro-orgainsims in two of which really caught my eye. The first was a Midge which I was able to identify by the poster Pond II 'Larger Microlife" ( Gordan Peachey 1998). The Midge was a technically an insect larvae and was easy to spot because of it's comparably larger size to the other organisms that I saw. I observed the Midge eating many of the other smaller organisms and traveling back and forth from the soil in the bottom of the aquarium to the water just above the soil. The second organism that caught my eye that I was able to identify was a Litonotus from the book The Living Freshwater Protozoa 'A Color Guide" by DJ Patterson of the University of Bristol on page 132 figure 285-287 'Litonotus'. The Litonotus is a cilliated protozoa that has a ovate body with contracting bottle-neck shaped mouth and neck with two distinguishing circular nuclei in the middle of the organisms body. I also observed another organism that I was unable to identify that was similar to the Litonotus but did not have the distinguishing two circular nuclei in the middle the organism was ciliated but had longer more distinguished cillia on the right side of the organism, so the I will continue to try to identify the organism but at this time shall remain unknown.