creepin'festus
That's about all folks...
Once again, almost double the proceeding magnification and reaching close to the functional limits of the SEM. I did take some images with greater magnification, but artistic quality dropped and, after all, that's what I putting these image up on Flickr for; artistic and general interest.
For my Masters Degree I studied the mycorrhizal associations on American ginseng; various fungi that form symbiotic relationships with all plants except those of the cabbage family. These relationships can easily become pathogenic which lead me into the study of fungal pathogens; mainly of plants, but not always. One fascinating fungal pathogen that infects common house flies (Musca domestica) is Entomopthora muscae. I had long been aware of this pathogenic relationship, and rather late into my Master's program I came upon some flies that were colonized by it (and very dead from it) and decided to, well, play around a bit. One advantage of being in a Masters program in Biology is that you can come up with all sorts of excuses simply to play with a lot of very high-end equipment; in this case a Scanning Electron Microscope.
I collected the flies and first photographed them under a dissecting microscope, then immediately prepared them for the SEM. This was back in the bad old days, long before digital cameras, and I wasn't aware how poorly these images were until they came back from the lab. By then it was far too late to redo the images. My apologizies for the poor images of the whole flies. I was very hesitant to go over to digital, sorry now that I didn't make the move much sooner. Anyhow, I am very pleased with the SEM images and wish to share them here. Remember of course, that these images were taken back in 1994 or 1995 and technology and quality has changed a lot. Still, I'm very pleased with the ones being posted. And yes, just like my images of Hornworms being parasitized by wasps, these images are a tad on the gross side.
So Harry the house fly, being gregarious, sees another fly and lands on your kitchen window pane to join him. Unknown to Harry, his friend is dead and, as he walks towards his buddy he picks up on his feet spores of Entomopthora muscae from the glass. Finding his friend dead he flies away, grooms himself and, while doing so, ingest the spores of the fungi. Soon after the fungi colonizes his body and, rather literally, begins consuming him from the inside out, leaving his brain until the last. When his body is fully packed with fungal material, the fungi goes to his head. Harry, going crazy at this point, finds a high place, usually a branch or a window pane, lands on it, puts his head down, vomits (thus sticking himself there) and dies. Almost immediately after death he breaks open and fungal spores appear from his body. These spores begin shooting off and land on the window pane. In time, these first spores may produce others to form concentric rings on the glass. And flies, being gregarious, see poor Harry down there and come for a visit; and thus the cycle continues.
The parasitized flies are easy to spot. Their heads are down, their bodies showing yellowish white bands somewhat like those of a bee, and a white ring of spores, sometimes several rings, are usually clearly seen around them.
The SEM micrographs show several images, of increasing magnification, of the ruptured flies and the spores coming from them. Some shots taken from the dissecting microscope show the flies as you might see them. I had a lot fun with this. Hope you enjoy it.
The black bar underneath the images give the power used while taking the photo in KV, the magnification and a bar comparing size to an established unit. CBS stands for College of Biological Science.
That's about all folks...
Once again, almost double the proceeding magnification and reaching close to the functional limits of the SEM. I did take some images with greater magnification, but artistic quality dropped and, after all, that's what I putting these image up on Flickr for; artistic and general interest.
For my Masters Degree I studied the mycorrhizal associations on American ginseng; various fungi that form symbiotic relationships with all plants except those of the cabbage family. These relationships can easily become pathogenic which lead me into the study of fungal pathogens; mainly of plants, but not always. One fascinating fungal pathogen that infects common house flies (Musca domestica) is Entomopthora muscae. I had long been aware of this pathogenic relationship, and rather late into my Master's program I came upon some flies that were colonized by it (and very dead from it) and decided to, well, play around a bit. One advantage of being in a Masters program in Biology is that you can come up with all sorts of excuses simply to play with a lot of very high-end equipment; in this case a Scanning Electron Microscope.
I collected the flies and first photographed them under a dissecting microscope, then immediately prepared them for the SEM. This was back in the bad old days, long before digital cameras, and I wasn't aware how poorly these images were until they came back from the lab. By then it was far too late to redo the images. My apologizies for the poor images of the whole flies. I was very hesitant to go over to digital, sorry now that I didn't make the move much sooner. Anyhow, I am very pleased with the SEM images and wish to share them here. Remember of course, that these images were taken back in 1994 or 1995 and technology and quality has changed a lot. Still, I'm very pleased with the ones being posted. And yes, just like my images of Hornworms being parasitized by wasps, these images are a tad on the gross side.
So Harry the house fly, being gregarious, sees another fly and lands on your kitchen window pane to join him. Unknown to Harry, his friend is dead and, as he walks towards his buddy he picks up on his feet spores of Entomopthora muscae from the glass. Finding his friend dead he flies away, grooms himself and, while doing so, ingest the spores of the fungi. Soon after the fungi colonizes his body and, rather literally, begins consuming him from the inside out, leaving his brain until the last. When his body is fully packed with fungal material, the fungi goes to his head. Harry, going crazy at this point, finds a high place, usually a branch or a window pane, lands on it, puts his head down, vomits (thus sticking himself there) and dies. Almost immediately after death he breaks open and fungal spores appear from his body. These spores begin shooting off and land on the window pane. In time, these first spores may produce others to form concentric rings on the glass. And flies, being gregarious, see poor Harry down there and come for a visit; and thus the cycle continues.
The parasitized flies are easy to spot. Their heads are down, their bodies showing yellowish white bands somewhat like those of a bee, and a white ring of spores, sometimes several rings, are usually clearly seen around them.
The SEM micrographs show several images, of increasing magnification, of the ruptured flies and the spores coming from them. Some shots taken from the dissecting microscope show the flies as you might see them. I had a lot fun with this. Hope you enjoy it.
The black bar underneath the images give the power used while taking the photo in KV, the magnification and a bar comparing size to an established unit. CBS stands for College of Biological Science.