MICROSCOPIC CLASSIFICATION

BY MOVEMENT
Table of Contents
Microscopic classification – by movement?!?.....................................................................................................2
What movement are we talking about?...............................................................................................................2
Vimeo library................................................................................................................................................................... 2
Resources to identify and classify your findings.................................................................................................2
NCBI Taxonomy browser...............................................................................................................................................2
Tree of Life web project..................................................................................................................................................2
Virtual ponddip (limited)................................................................................................................................................2
Make a phylogenetic tree of your findings (Assignment)..............................................................................................3
Arms/Legs........................................................................................................................................................................3
Body movement.............................................................................................................................................................3
Hopping, rowing, spinning.............................................................................................................................................3
Legs................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Body movement.............................................................................................................................................................3
Snake like......................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Body movement.............................................................................................................................................................3
Body movement............................................................................................................................................................... 3
Body movement.............................................................................................................................................................3
Contractive stalk..............................................................................................................................................................4
Cells are attached, cilia on top........................................................................................................................................4
Flagella............................................................................................................................................................................. 4
unicelluar with one or more flagella, diverse group.......................................................................................................4
Cilia................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Whole cell moves or tumbles, free living.......................................................................................................................4
Amoeboid......................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Amoeba Pseudopodia, unicellular, movement through pseudopods...............................................................................5
Gliding.............................................................................................................................................................................. 5
Symmetric, silica shell often brown, green (photosynthetic unicellular algae!).............................................................5
+/- Movement...................................................................................................................................................................5
Bacteria (visual with 20-40x).........................................................................................................................................5
No movement................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Green Algae - Desmids..................................................................................................................................................5
No movement................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Eggs, cysts..................................................................................................................................................................... 6
No movement................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Artifacts......................................................................................................................................................................... 6
No movement................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Spores............................................................................................................................................................................ 6

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Microscopic classification – by movement?!?
For many of you it is the first time looking at a water sample and at microscopic organisms. It can be very
confusing to be told to be classified what you see – you don’t even know what to look for. Over the years I have
watched students (and TAs) struggle with coming up with names for what they see under the microscope at the
beginning of the microbiology lab. As I grew tired to be told everything is either an amoeba, paramecium or
volvox, I decided to come up with a new way to help my students to learn to see, recognize and eventually
classify their findings. Microscopy of pond life is one of the most fascinating experiences I ever had in my
school and college experience and I want to share this with you.

So the first thing students usually recognize is movement: it moves, zooms, crawls, etc. So I have arranged this
chart by movement. We are in the process of gathering representative images to build a library of organisms
over the next few semesters. Thanks for contributing to this project!!!

What movement are we talking about?

Vimeo library
Check out our videos we made for you to learn about movement. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but it may help
you get started
https://vimeo.com/groups/157227
So far we have videos of a tardigrade walking, an amoeba moving with pseudopods (amoeboid movement), a
daphnia (using arms/legs), rotifer using body movement as locomotion.

Resources to identify and classify your findings

NCBI Taxonomy browser
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/

Tree of Life web project

http://tolweb.org/tree/

Virtual ponddip (limited)

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/ponddip/
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/

Make a phylogenetic tree of your findings (Assignment)

http://phylot.biobyte.de/

How do you identify your microscopic findings?

See if and how the organisms move. Do they have legs, arm, tumble, move like a snake?

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Identify the movement first, go to the appropriate section and see if the drawing matches what you see. Also go
to the vimeo site and see if what you think you see matches with the actual movement recorded.

Arms/Legs
Body movement: Hopping, rowing, spinning
Water fleas = Cladocera
A. Daphnia

Legs
Body movement:

A. Tardigrades Water Bears - Tardigrada

B. Mites – close relative to spider,
Arachnids (Acari)
C. Mosquito larvae

Snake like
Body movement

A. Flatworms - Platyheleminthes
B. Round worms - Nematodes
C. Gastrotrich
D. Segmented worms, bristles - Oligochaete

Body movement
Body movement
A. Rotifers - Rotifera
1. Philodina (bdelloid
rotifer)
2. with pattererned
(lorica) shell
3. Rotifer colonies
4. Sessile rotifers
B. Hydra - Hydrozoon
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Contractive stalk
Cells are attached, cilia on top
A. Stentor - trumpet animal
B. Bell animales
1. Vorticella
2. Epistylis
C. Suctoria (no cilia)

Flagella - whole cell moves or tumbles

Unicelluar whole cell moves or tumbles, with one or more
flagella, diverse group
A. Mastigophora
Green chloroplast, red eye spot, flagella
1. Euglenoa
B. Dinoflagellate
1. "Red tide", example Karenia brevis"

Cilia - whole cell moves or tumbles

Unicellular, whole cell moves or tumbles, cilia are all over their body, free living, diverse group
A. Ciliopora
1. Free swimming
a. Paramecium (slipper animal)
b. many other small ciliates
c. Spirostomum
2. Sessile/crawling ciliates
a. Euplotes

Amoeboid
Amoeba Pseudopodia, unicellular, movement
through pseudopods
A. Encased, shelled Amoeba
1. Nebela
B. Free living Amoeba
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 1. Naegleria fowleri (Brain eating amoeba)
2. Amoeba Proteus
C. Heliozoan - sun animales

Gliding
Symmetric, silica shell often brown, green (photosynthetic unicellular algae!)
A. Diatoms
1. Single cells
a. Cymbella
b. Pennate
2. Chains

+/- Movement
Bacteria (visual with 20-40x)
A. Cyanobacteria = blue-green Algae
1.
B. Gram + and - becteria
1. Segmented bacteria
2. Spirochaetes
3. Many other mobile bacteria

No movement
Green Algae - Desmids
A. plant like
B. single celled
1. Desmids, symmetrical
2. other, round
C. cellular arangement, colony
1. Volvox
Gliding
See Diatomes

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 Flagella
See Chalmydomonas, see also Euglena

No movement
Eggs, cysts
A. Snail eggs
1. Insect eggs
B. Tardigrade eggs
1. Tardigrade cysts
C. Parasite eggs
1. Parasite cyst
D. Rotifer egg
1. Protozoa cysts

No movement
Spores
A. Fungal spores

No movement
Artifacts
A. Air bubble
1. Sand
B. Lipid droplets
C. Insect parts
1. Butterfly scales
D. Pollen
1. Plant material

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