A 24 well plate with soil samples from the Colby College Arboretum. Each well has a different color because the soil properties of each sample varied. Students chose different tree species to sample near, measured pH, took samples from different soil layers, and set up enrichment cultures (and controls). Will hopefully get some fun protists!

I got a lot of joy out of sharing a #protistaday for a good month+. I admit to feeling totally overwhelmed lately, but doing science is still joyful. I am teaching an evo cell bio course now and we did forest soil sampling today. I can't wait to see what crawls out of these gorgeous student samples.

Radiolarian cells on a dark background due to a form of reflected light illumination using gooseneck lamps and illuminating the microscope stage from the sides.

Change your illumination a bit and everything looks new! Radiolarians illuminated from the side rather than using transmitted light. I think this is mimicking a type of reflected light microscopy since there is no light passing directly through the specimens. #protistsonsky #protistaday

An image of a radiolarian from the Carribean Sea off of Puerto Rico, likely from the genus Eucecryphalus. Looks like a little glass hat.

An image of a radiolarian from the Atlantic Ocean off of Bermuda, likely from the genus Eucecryphalus. Looks like a little glass hat.

One of my favorite radiolarians. I call it a "little hat", but I guess it is probably Eucecryphalus sp. Here are two examples from Bermuda (Atlantic) and Puerto Rico (Caribbean). Exquisite little #protistsonsky. I love seeing these forms in different regions of the Oceans. #protistaday #marinelife

The rhizarian testate amoeba Euglypha rotunda eats its co-cultured bacteria, but it will also chow down on GFP E. coli. One day I'll use these vids to measure digestion rates. @thealgaeman.bsky.social another answer to what they eat! #protistaday #protistsonsky

Sometimes you need to take your little shelled amoebas out for a walk. Rhizarian testate amoeba euglypha rotunda #protistsonsky #protistaday

Palpitomonas: the movie. I like this blurry little video because it shows the cryptistid Palpitomonas with its two absurdly long flagella beating with two different patterns. I imagine it as a pianist playing different parts with each hand. #protistaday #protistsonsky

Today's #protistaday is a scan through a multinucleated Acantharian cell from here in the Gulf of Maine. All of the larger Acantharians I've looked at have multiple nuclei like this... need to take a look at/stain the teeny "baby" ones to see how these structures develop! #marinelife #protistsonsky

An SEM image of a testate amoebozoan that makes its shell from debris in the environment.

An SEM image of a testate amoebozoan that makes its shell from food particles--mostly diatom tests in this case!

The rhizarian testate amoeba that I shared yesterday makes its shell out of intricate, self-constructed glass scales. Other testate amoebozoans in the same environment make their shells out of debris (left) or food (right). These are interesting examples of convergence! #protistsonsky #protistaday

SEM image of a rhizarian testate amoeba (euglyphid) showing its glass scales.

Not a fish or a dragon scale, but a single cell of a #protistsonsky. This rhizarian testate amoeba creates perfect tiny glass scales to build it's shell. From a peat bog. #protistaday.

Drawing of the phaeodarian Conchoceras caudatum from Haeckel's book from the Challenger expedition.

Living cell of the phaeodarian Conchoceras caudatum collected in the Caribbean Sea near Puerto Rico.

Inspired by @evocellbio.bsky.social, I think I found our gal: Conchoceras caudatum! Drawing from the Challenger expedition in the mid 1870's. Happy to share this again with the additional context. What an incredible cell. #protistaday #protistsonsky #marinelife

A nasselarian radiolarian with its podoconus (cone-like arrangement of long arms) out and lots of internal movement. Beautiful to see! In the water column, that cone of arms is probably oriented "up" for catching debris/prey and managing motion with the hard skeleton pointed "down" #protistaday

Is it a repeat? Sort of, but this is a radiolarian in motion! I wanted to see how dynamic the symbionts are. They mostly stay still over a couple of minutes. With @micrott.bsky.social and @evocellbio.bsky.social #protistaday #protistsonsky #marinelife

Picture of a marine protist imaging setup with an inverted microscope, ocular camera, and two radiolarians on the computer screen.

Field imaging setup with @micrott.bsky.social. I lug my inverted scope and a variety of little cameras around and am taking up space in her lab to image #protistsonsky in collaboration. It is amazing! Pictured are two spumellarian radiolarians #protistaday #marinelife

"Hey wait for meeee!" Said the little radiolarian. #protistaday #protistsonsky #marinelife. With @micrott.bsky.social and @evocellbio.bsky.social

An image of a nasselarian radiolarian with symbionts from the Caribbean sea.

Today a radiolarian #protistaday from the Caribbean. It is a privilege to have the means, support, and interest to Research the curious cell biology of radiolarians. I have many like this to share and will hopefully have opportunities to dive into their cell bio in the future. 🦑 #protistsonsky

Okay... #protistaday. I know this is a phaeodarian, but how does a cell evolve to build a glass mouth, teeth and all, to live inside? This is totally amazing. #protistsonsky #marinelife. With @evocellbio.bsky.social @micrott.bsky.social

Image of a single cell from the group Taxopodida. An oval shaped cell with long oar-like glass appendages.

Today's #protistaday is especially for @krabberod.bsky.social. A taxopodida from the Caribbean Sea. With its long, wide oars it looks pretty different from the species I encounter in Maine! #protistsonsky #marinelife

Today's #protistaday is not my most beautiful video, but it comes from a special location. This is a pair of ciliates that emerged from rainforest soil from El Yunque national forest 🇵🇷. Soils are amazing bc they look still at first, but a drop of water and a day wait brings motion! #protistsonsky

Plankton tows in Puerto Rico with @micrott.bsky.social are going great! Lots of beautiful microeukaryotes and tiny animals. Today I'll share this Ornithocerus sp. dinoflagellate bc you can see it's little band of bacterial symbionts! #protistaday #protistsonsky #marinelife

An inverted image of isolated acantharians looking like a group of stars in the night sky.

In hopes of finding lots of Carribean radiolarians today, my #protistaday image is a constellation of microscopic stars of the sea, acantharians. #marinelife #protistsonsky

A close up image of a radiolarian colony showing its central capsules, golden symbionts, and glass spines that this species makes.

A radiolarian colony with some beautiful features: golden symbionts close to the cell bodies, and glass spines--a simple form that is similar to the basic skeleton of many more elaborate single celled species. 🦑 #protistaday #protistsonsky #symbiosky

From a large, local, and unusual, bloom of the dinoflagellate Tripos muelleri in 2023. I trapped some cells in agar microwells to see if I could catch them dividing in a long timelapse. Those wells are 250 microns in diameter: the cells are large! #protistaday #protistsonsky #marinelife

4 images of the marine cryptophyte protist palpitomonas. Showing the ce body and flagella and nuclear staining with the dye syto9 in green.

The tiny heterotrophic cryptophyte palpitomonas with its small cell body, relatively large nucleus (shown with a green nuclear stain) and its strangely extra long pair of flagella. #protistaday #protistsonsky

Keeping with the #symbiosky green alga from yesterday, this amazing video shows where each little algal cell is (green dots) inside a salamander embryo. The only vertebrate-alga endosymbiosis. We are still trying to understand the interaction. Light sheet microscopy. #protistaday #protistsonsky

Mitosis in a green alga. The cell grows until it is tetralogy, then divides twice to form 4 new haploid cells. This is one of my study algae, Oophila amblystomatis, a symbiotic green alga. #protistsonsky #protistaday

Crawling through the water in slow motion, the tetraflagellate green alga Cymbomonas swims across the frame with its double-breaststroke like action pulling it forward. #protistaday #protistsonsky #marinelife

An image of a microscopic foraminiferan. It is a single cell that makes a calcium carbonate (calcite) shell and spines.

A gorgeous planktonic foram from the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda. With @blancobercial.bsky.social. Your #protistaday! #protistsonsky #marinelife

A little #bogmonster #symbiosky ciliate captured by a visiting student in an agar microwell from the readily reproducible protocol by @arcadiascience.bsky.social. Look at it go! #protistaday #protistsonsky. Protocol links below.

Timelapse of a large phaeodarian #rhizaria and acantharians that stuck to it in a plankton tow in Bermuda with @blancobercial.bsky.social. It has a central capsule (or "little bean"--Natalia Llopis Monferrer) and brown stuff "phaeodium" that move around inside the cell #protistaday #protistsonsky 🦑

Drama when a ciliate colony encounters a zoop. #protistaday #protistsonsky #marinelife