Microscopic Wonders in Water

[Music] other places snowcapped mountains present an entirely different scene equally beautiful melting Mountain snow forms Rivers which soon become the home of wild ducks and fish and other animals elsewhere Nature's forests have impressed men for Centuries with their magnificence here the graceful wild elf finds a pleasant [Music] home Nature's wonders are locked away from human eyes nestled among the forest litter and the mountain soil are millions of unseen [Music] animals the water in this Pond for instance provides a home for thousands upon thousands of tiny creatures hundreds of them can be collected in a single jar of water they are so small that human eyes alone cannot detect them the jar of water shows no signs of life not a single living thing can be seen in this drop of water but the water is alive with invisible creatures when viewed with the aid of a powerful microscope tiny members of the microscopic Animal Kingdom become visible most of them are much smaller than the sharp point of a pin Nature has proved provided a forest for the stately elk to live in but these tiny creatures live in a single drop of water studying Nature's minute wonders through the microscope is a fascinating hobby a jar of stagnant water can mean hours of fun to the microscope hobbyist another drop of sample pond water is placed on a glass microscope slide a thin cover glass is placed over it perhaps this new sample will reveal other members of the kingdom of invisible animals this is an amoeba surrounded by Vines of microscopic plant life its body consists of only one single cell the amoeba belongs to the protozoan branch of the animal kingdom the amoeba is next to nothing for it has no bones no mouth no fur or skin yet it is an animal the very lowest form of animal life an amoeba is often hard to find under the microscope its body is almost transparent it can be seen more clearly by slowly tilting the microscope mirror until the amoeba stands out against a dark background the amoeba Travels by extending a part of its body called a false foot then the rest of its body flows into the foot the amoeba has a unique way of eating it simply wraps its body around tiny bits of plant and animal life and absorbs them by slowly moving the slide around under the microscope new creatures come into view these microscopic animals are called vorticella they are also protozoans because their bodies are made up of only a single cell vorticella have long tails by which they attach themselves to bits of plant life if a single vorticella could be enlarged 125,000 times it would be near near as big as a man a higher power microscope objective will reveal another interesting thing about the vorticella many fine hairs surround the mouth end of its body these hairs are called cyia vorticella constantly wave their cyia and make currents of water the water rushes into the vell's body carrying bits of plant and animal life there are many hundreds of different one-celled animals in the protozoan branch of the animal kingdom another drop of water from the same Source might contain a different protozoan here is a strange looking pair they also have cyia surrounding their heads to identify them the microscope hobbyist looks in a book of freshwater biology men have spent years studying and classifying all these tiny animals this looks like the creatures now under the microscope another close look through the microscope and another look at the picture leaves no doubt that these are stentors stentors gather food by stirring up currents of water the same way as vorticella one drop of water might contain a hundred tiny creatures these are called urac Centrum they spend their entire lives spinning through the water at a dizzy speed eurocentrum are also single celled animals therefore they are protozoans eurocentrum spin so swiftly that it's hard to observe the cyia which surround their bodies there are several ways of slowing down Swift moving microscopic creatures one good method is the way this boy is doing he lightly fills a small brush with a chemical powder called methel then he dusts the powder onto a sample slide it dissolves and forms a thick solution within a few minutes the thick solution slows down the tiny animals but does not harm them now the Cilia can be seen plainly if the hobbyist is lucky he can witness one of Nature's most unusual sights here a protozoa is dividing itself in two soon there'll be two separate creatures where there was only one before all protozoans reproduce in this simple manner called reproduction by fishing now watch this tiny animal closely it's about to become two separate and independent creatures with a final jerk of its microscopic body this protozoa has succeeded in reproducing itself if allowed to reproduce freely protozoans would soon blanket the Earth but most protozoans have an unhappy fate they merely become tasty meals for larger forms of water life such as the Hydra the Hydra belongs to a higher branch of the animal kingdom than the protozoans its body is composed of more than a single cell when a Hydra is hungry he discharges a fluid if his tentacles touch another animal the fluid paralyzes the hydra's victim and provides a meal for this weird looking animal microscopic animals from other branches of the animal kingdom are present in the same jar of water this is a rooper it is a much more highly developed creature than any of the protozoans it has a brain and a digestive tract young roopers are hatched from eggs the roer has two separate groups of cyia which resemble Wheels the cyia provide a means of of obtaining food here another kind of rotifer has worked his way into a colony of protozoans the smaller protozoans are swept toward him by the strong currents produced by his