These two copepods were collected from cold water in eastern Canada. The back of the carapace has numerous small bodies attached, particularly on the lower animal. Anyone know what those may be? Micro-fungi? Somebody's eggs? I'm far away from my area of expertise here. (Second photo shows a little more detail. Sorry for the low-quality image, it's the best I can do without a lot of fuss.)
I can't make out much from the images, but we have often seen peritrich ciliates on copepods (and many other small crustaceans).
Thank you, Dr. Vittori. Based on the images I have found on the internet, I believe you are right, these are probably epibiont ciliates, contracted because of the preservative. If I can catch a few more live animals I may be able to confirm that conjecture.
The external epibionts are peritrich ciliates. Several are known from copepods. The internal opacity of the copepods is a bit off. They're not usually so dark internally.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Zoology
- Invertebrate Zoology
- Arthropods
- Crustacea