During a recent 10 mile run, I found an unusual sight for winter along the roadway in town. A slowly moving river of drainage water filled with huge strands of algae, bubbling with oxygen and a rich green color. Samples were taken the next day and microscopic imaging revealed a host of swimming protozoans, loads of round objects and some very fine strands of the stringy algae. I suspect the round objects were pollen or spores of some sort, the evergreens in Payson are at a maximum bloom right now after all the rains. Whatever they are, they have interesting internal structure!

600x Images:

You can tell how fine these strands were, because I had to use the 600x magnification just to show the individual cells. The round blurred objects are moving protozoans streaked in the multiple exposures used for the focus stacking set.

Another set at 600x.

The "spores" were small but have small circular internal details - perhaps individual reproductive cells. The black round dots are bacteria.

They occured in groups and clusters such as this indicating they are somewhat sticky.

NICE cluster of spores! Swimming protozoans are everywhere, and youll see them later...

Stunning round clumps of spores. The round and oval objects are protozoans. The large strand appears to be some type of tiny root strand.

1500x Oil Immersion Images:

This focus stack was dozens of images, and the protozoan at the upper left did not want to sit still! He is blurred a bit, but the spores show good detail including a wall structure on the outside.

This is a close up of the algal strands showing internal structures.

Here are some You tube movie clips of the protozoans:

Movie Clip 1 - At 600x, this shows the hordes of swimming protozoans in the algal strands.

Movie Clip 2 - At 1500x, we see a single strand of algae with the internal structures moving about due to Brownian motion. An enlongated protozoan whizzes by! Cells are mini-universes. Inside what is essentially an cnclosed bag of water the internal organells move about doing thier jobs. The small black dots inside the cells are most likely mitochondria.