Snails and Seed Shrimp

For my last observation I noticed a lot more activity in my microaquarium compared to last week. There were several organisms that seemed to be plentiful in only a weeks time since my last observation. Two organisms that I was able to see and indentify that weren't previously noticed, were the snail and a seed shrimp. The snail was what would be typically expected of a snail in that it had a circular, spiral shell and was able to move by crawling around the tank using its body to pull itsself around. I was able to indentify the organism by the poster Pond Life II. The second new organism I was able to identify was the seed shrimp, which was a dark beetle- like organism that moved very fast around the microaquarium (relative to everything else) and was also much larger than any other organism that I had seen. The swimming pattern to me resembled that of a squid in that the flagella seemed to drift on the same side as the mouth and it appeared that the organism wa swimming backwards. I was able to identify this organism using the book Guide to MicroLife by Kenneth G. Rainis and Bruce J. Russel.