#protist

Stentor: Starry Night Under the Microscope

Hello everyone! These are my favorite organisms! Stentor coeruleus and they are creating a mini version of "The Starry Night" under the microscope! I love them more than anything else from the microworld! They are so beautiful and big, around 4 mm in length! This was recorded in only 40x magnification with my Motic microscope! I found them in the sample I collected from a forest lake yesterday. There are, not exaggerating, tens of thousands of them in one of my jars now. They beat their cilia around their mouth to create a vortex to bring anything edible into their mouth. Stentor coeruleus also have crazy regeneration abilities. If you cut them into a hundred pieces each piece will regenerate into a normal looking Stentor coeruleus in a day or two! The key components for the regeneration is that the piece will contain a bit of the cell nucleus which runs through the whole cell like a necklace and a bit of the cell membrane. I don't know how to express myself but I go crazy for Stentor coeruleus. I just love them so much!

✨coenobiums✨