Meeres Bärtierchen

[Goldfuss]

Hallo zusammen,
Small marine tardigrade of the genus Batillipes, which lives in the sand

[Jürgen Boschert]

Hi Carlos,

thanks for sharing this beautyfull and informative video!

[Spectrum]

Hello Luis Carlos,
Absolutely beautyful footage.
And so much information!
Thank you for sharing it with us.
Great Youtube channel as well!
Greetings Holger

[Gerd Schmahl]

Hallo Carlos,
How did you extract the animal from the sand?
LG Gerd

[Goldfuss]

Thanks Jürgen and Holger!

Gerd:
Excellent question, because it's quite complicated to transfer it to a slide. I usually place my samples on a Petri dish and observe them with a stereo microscope, extracting what interests me with a Pasteur pipette. It's not possible to aspirate this tardigrade directly with a Pasteur pipette because it adheres to the glass surface of the Petri dish with its suction discs. My solution requires patience (something rare these days). I waited until it was on a grain of sand and aspirated the grain. Once it was on the slide, I waited patiently until it decided to move away from the grain. Then I quickly removed the grain with the help of a needle.

[limno]

Hola Carlos !
Excellent video with fascinating details as always!
Many thanks!
Do you know this page?
http://www.baertierchen.de/main.html
There are some chapters about Batilipes
Best regards
Heinrich

[Gerd Schmahl]

Hallo Carlos,
Thanks for the description. I already knew this would be tricky.
Best regards
Gerd

[Ole Riemann]

Hello Carlos, I thoroughly enjoyed the Batillipes video. Have you heard of magnesium chloride which is commonly used by meiobenthologists to help extract and anesthetize microfauna in marine sediments? I know from personal experience that this also works well for tardigrades in marine sediment samples.

Best wishes, Ole

[Goldfuss]

Heinrich and Ole:
Thank you both for your feedback on the video and also for the information on the tardigrade website and the magnesium chloride anesthesia method.

[B.Neuhaus]

Dear Carlos,

thanks for the nice video. I attach a schedule for the extraction of marine meiofauna with the magnesium chloride method. You would need 1 liter 7.5 % magnesium chloride in tap water, two beakers about 1 liter in volume, a funnel-like net with pores of about 40-63 µm, a petri dish, and a squeeze bottle with seawater.

You may collect specimens out of the seawater in a petri dish with a small amount of magnesium chloride solution in the tip of the pipette, which prevents the specimen from attaching to the pipette's inner surface. Specimens can also be narcotised with the magnesium chloride solution on the slide if wanted. This is reversible, and specimens get back active pretty quickly after adding some seawater.

Good luck with your studies!

Best wishes
Birger

[Goldfuss]

Birger:
Thank you for such complete information!

[B.Neuhaus]

Dear Carlos,

I am glad you liked the schedule.

I just came across another pamphlet of mine, wehere I described several additional techniques for the extraction of meiofauna from various kinds of sediment, a few tests about the marine environment, and how to prepare a slide with marine meiofauna. This was meant for a workshop with teachers and is therefore in German (I am sorry for this). However, it maybe useful for at least some people here. Any questions are welcome.

Best wishes
Birger

[Gerd Schmahl]

Hallo Birger,
Danke für dieses interessante Dokument!
Für die Präparate mit "Füßchen" benutze ich nur noch Vaseline, statt Knete oder Bienenwachs. Damit kann man auch schöne "Mikroaquarien" bauen, in denen man Langzeitbeobachtungen durchführen kann, weil die Vaseline noch Gasaustausch zu lässt, aber Verdunstung weitestgehend verhindert.

LG Gerd