“Ophyroglena is a genus of histophagous ciliates, meaning that they feed on tissue. The one we're watching here has been drawn to this crustacean like a shark smelling a drop of blood in water, except it's a microbe drawn to a crack in its shell. And once it gets inside, the ophryglena gorges on the tissue inside.”

Journey to the Microcosmos- Ophyroglena: The Tricky Transforming Ciliate

“So when these situations arrive, we'll go with a name that is as specific as we can get, like the ciliate here that we refer to so specifically as... "ciliate". But with our new differential interference contrast microscope, we've been able to make out all sort of new details that we couldn't see before. And in some cases, those new details have helped us identify organisms that we could not name before.”

Journey to the Microcosmos- Ophyroglena: The Tricky Transforming Ciliate

Images Originally Captured by Jam’s Germs