#ostracods — Public Fediverse posts

Today, I found a vernal pool bustling with tiny, freshwater ostracods (order Podocopida). Each is about the size of a pinhead.

#nature #NaturePhotography #bugs #crustaceans #ostracods #FreshwaterOstracods #bugstodon #SouthernCalifornia

Parasite of the Day: Euglenaformis parasitica
http://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2023/12/euglenaformis-parasitica.html

"#Euglena and its kin are mostly free-living, photosynthesizing when the sun's out, absorbing organic matter from the environment when it's dark. But the ancestor of E. parasitica was not content with this mostly peaceful lifestyle, and has evolved to live inside the body of #animals. These #euglenids were found parasitising #ostracods & #flatworms in a rice field in #Ibaraki, #Japan."

#protists #algae #parasites #microbes

Watch #SeaFireflies Make Underwater Fireworks as They Seek Mates https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/science/sea-fireflies-glowing.html :ClosedAccess:

Collective synchrony of mating signals modulated by ecological cues and social signals in #bioluminescent sea fireflies https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2023.2311

"The creatures behind the eerie light show are called #ostracods... Under a #microscope, you can make out an #ostracod’s shrimplike body encased in a see-through shell. A bizarre organ called the upper lip makes many ostracods bioluminescent"

We finally know for sure what a #trilobite ate
Tens of thousands of fossils later, we've found a trilobite with a full #stomach. Contents appeared to be #ostracods, small #crustacean that is common today (there are 13,000 existing ostracod species). Some of these appear to be larval versions. There are also fragments of thin shells that probably were derived from #shellfish like #clams and #mussels, as well as some pieces of an e#chinoderm (think #starfish & #seaurchins)
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/09/we-finally-know-for-sure-what-a-trilobite-ate/

Advanced imaging reveals the last bite of a 465-million-year-old trilobite https://phys.org/news/2023-09-advanced-imaging-reveals-million-year-old-trilobite.html

Uniquely preserved gut contents illuminate #trilobite #palaeophysiology https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06567-7

"The digestive tract of the trilobite #Bohemolichas incola was tightly packed with #calcareous #shells and their fragments that belonged to marine #invertebrates such as #ostracods, #bivalves and #echinoderms, some of them identifiable to the species level."