Micro Lab Week 2: Exercise 2 — The Protista
Exercise 2 — The Protista: Algae and Protozoa
Don’t forget: You should have your lab coat/apron/scrubs and your lab supplies this week.
yanoReview the lecture material on algae and protozoa AND read the introduction in your lab book.
You’ve already seen some algae and some protozoa. This week you’ll be looking at the following:
Algae:
- Fresh Samples (make wet mounts)
- Closterium a green alga that looks a bit like a cigar.
- Prepared Slides of
- Diatoms — note the ornamentation on their cell walls which are made of silicates. [These are slides from my Master's degree thesis.]
- Volvox – a colonial green alga which is basically a ball of flagellated cells.
Protozoa:
- Fresh Samples (make wet mounts) [100x to 400x]
- Amoeba – these need to be fished out of the jar using a pipet and disecting microscope.
- Paramecium – these are speedy buggers; you might want to place a small drop of “Proto-Slo” on the slide first to slow them down.
- Vorticella – these look like wine goblets.
Prepared Slides
- Paramecium – no they don’t come in colors; they were stained this way. 100x or 400x
- Trichomonas vaginalis 400x
- Trypanosoma – make sure you label the parasites (trypaonosomes) and the blood cells in your drawing. You might need to go to 1000x to see these well.
Cyanobacteria
- Be sure to read about Cyanobacteria in your lab and your textbooks.
- We have fresh Oscillatoria (wet mount 400x)
- Also prepared slides of Oscillatoria.
By the end of the week of lecture and lab you should be able to answer all of the questions at the end of Exercise 2 in your lab book. You should already have finished the questions at the end of Exercise 1!
