The Fresh Water Pond (1961)

e freshwater ponds are common in many parts of America and other lands every Pond teams with life some of the pond animals you see easily with your eyes alone such as muskrats Turtles frogs crayfish dragonflies redwinged blackbirds and fish many pond plants too are readily observed usually these are the flowering plants that get their water through roots in the ground like these water lies or through roots in the water like these duckweeds some interesting features of the plants and animals that live in or around ponds can be seen only with the help of lenses Charles is examining a duckweed plant with a hand lens lens much more of the structure and shape of the duckweed Leaf can be seen when it is magnified by the lens these small animals called Hydra are about one4 of an inch long they can hardly be seen until magnified by the lens they capture food with their long tentacles you can find Hydra attached to plants or stones on the pond bottom this freshwater jellyfish swims to the surface of the water spreads its tentacles like a net and captures tiny animals as it slowly sinks to the bottom animals like these might be captured by the jellyfish as it sinks various kinds of these Fork tailed creatures can burrow into a duck or fish or even you and then change into flatworm parasites called flukes this kind of flatworm is called plenaria it is not a parasite it Glides over Pebbles and other things on the pond bottom searching for food attached to Pebbles or leaves and twigs you might see these Moss animals many of them are connected together to form colonies the waving circle of tentacles helps bring food into their mouths crawling among the debris on the bottom of the ponds are bristle worms like these they are relatives of earthworms who also eat dead plant material here you can see the worms bristles climbing about on the fine roots and filaments of water plants are strange creatures called water bears they have four pairs of Stumpy legs ending in claws they feed on the juices from moss and other water plants swimming freely in the water are water fleas or daphnia like these they are so transparent you can see their hearts beating and their blood circulating at some seasons of the Year there are so many of them they serve as the main food for small fish but there are still smaller creatures that can be seen only when they are magnified even more Charles can't carry his microscope out to the pond easily so he collects some of the pond water and the debris from both the surface of the water and the bottom and brings the material back to the family Workshop where he can examine it under his microscope small samples of the collection are put on slides with these droppers a cover slip is added and then the whole preparation is put on the microscope under microscopes tiny organisms can be magnified from five to 2,000 times if you look at a sample of the scum that was on the pond surface surf you can see with about 100 times magnification that the scum is made up of tiny living plants called algae algae are among the oldest forms of plant life these plants are made up of only one cell or groups of single cells joined together unlike ordinary plants some algae can move using still higher magnification of about 500 times you can see the joined individual cells that make up this plant how such cells move is still not fully understood all algae contain chlorophyll and therefore can get their energy for growth from sunlight the round bubbles are oxygen gas being released by the plants one of the single celled plants is ugina it moves about like an animal this threadlike plant is named Spyro Gyra the pond scums may also contain many of these beautifully sculptured plants called desmids another kind of algae are the datom they are encased in tiny shells and make up an abundant form of life in the freshwater Pond here are several different kinds of datom chalk is made from the fossil SC skeletons of these plants this rolling plant called volvox is a group or colony of single cells connected together in a sphere it is magnified about 50 times the white balls within the Spheres are called daughter colonies they will grow into new independent colonies this is a volvox in a special growth stage the few star-like bodies have thick spiny wall walls that enable the volvox to survive in the mud when a pond dries up at such times most cells would die when favorable conditions return a new colony of Volvo can grow from each this pond plant is another one-celled organism with two different kinds of cells which we might call male and female at certain times the different cells Clump and emerge as paired male and female cells the male and female look alike you can see that they are in pairs one male and one female each cell has a thick spiny wall and like that special stage of volvox can survive when the pond dries up and become active again whenever the pond refills similar in size to the one- celled plants or algae many one-celled animals called protozoans can be found in pond water this one is called amoeba and creeps about on the bottom of the pond by a flowing movement here enlarged about 100 times is one that swims about by means of cyia hundreds of cyia cover the surface of blepharisma the cyia look like tiny waving hairs sticking out from its body this one has cyia also it is stentor and is one of the largest of all protozoans although the protozoa we have just seen are one- celled animals they are almost as large as some of the many celled animals in the pond water such as these rotifers they are called rotifers because of the beating syst cyia around their mouths that look like rotating Wheels the rotary movement of the cyia assists in swimming and brings food into the mouth the mouth has a pair of Jaws to grind the food larger but still microscopic the many celled animals such as this water Mite eat the rotifers protozoa and algae as food some of the other animals that Charles might find in his collection don't require the microscope for observation for example snails are often found and can be moved from the collection jar to tanks or fish bowls where their activities can be seen more easily this snail is eating algae from the back of a tad pole tadpoles can also be found in the pond and brought home for study occasionally one might find leeches in the pond leeches are relatives of earthworms they have suckers at both ends of the body the front sucker is around the mouth and makes it possible for the leech to take in blood from other animals as food by using both suckers the leech can move about very well some clams live in ponds they get their food by straining the tiny protozoa and algae from the water we can see the effect of this filter feeding of clams by placing one in an aquarium that is Cloudy with the growth of one celled plants as we can see over a period of time the clam takes in the water containing the plants filters the plants from the water to use as food and expels the clear water eventually the water in the tank becomes completely clear water insects are also commonly found in ponds one of these is the water boatman its or likee legs work very well for swimming and its mouth parts are ideal for catching water fleas and other small prey this insect looks ferocious and it is strong enough to capture many of the water animals we have seen at one stage in its development it crawls out of the water and turns into a damsel fly these whir gig beetles swim about in Crazy patterns most of the time but when they feed each one takes a bubble of air for breathing under its wing covers and Dives down to catch a small animal for food on the surface of the water one finds finds the water Strider it walks about very rapidly it eats small animals that float on the surface just under the surface of the water are these mosquito larv you can see why they're often called mosquito wigglers we have seen representatives of the great variety of life in a pond some so small that they could not be seen without the help of the microscope even though individually of small size the large numbers of these minute forms of life makes them an important part of the life to be found in the freshwater Pond looking at the usually calm surface of the pond one can scarcely imagine that it contains so many different forms of animal and plant life all part of the complicated Web of Life life