When preparing entomology labs for undergraduates, I studied cockroach hindgut endosymbionts extracted from excrements of Gromphadorhina portentosa. I found these very firm ‘cysts’ of ca. 0.5-1 mm long, with the thick transparent coverage. One ‘cyst’ has a special design (marked *). Do you have any idea what it could be?
Thanks.
Hallo Andreas!
Thanks for your answer... as well as for your art piece.
Gruess,
Natascha.
Thank you, Yegor!
Nice to see you here.
The reason why I still doubt the mite-egg-interpretation is that these objects are of different size and shape. Such a variability of the egg is questionable taking into consideration stiff external envelope of these objects, is not it?
I guess they are fungal sclerotia! I put them in water for a week or so. They grow in long hyphae-like structures (see pic) and then produce spores.
Thank you very much, Andreas!
I will study the papers you sent... and I will continue my experiments with these enigmatic structures :)
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