Microscopy of White gerbera daisies

Gerbera daisies are the fifth most popular flowers in the world and are hugely used in gardens, bouquets, flower arrangements, etc. They closely resemble to sunflowers since they both belong to the same family Asteraceae. These flowers appear in different delightful colors like red, pink, orange, yellow and white.

 

Gerbera was named after the German botanist Traugott gerber and Gerbera daisies were discovered in the year 1884 by botanist Robert Jameson. This plant is native to South Africa but now its cultivation extends to South America and tropical Asia.

The flower has multiple rings of gradually increasingly large overlapping petals surrounding the central dark disk. It shows three different type of florets. The dark central disk contains “disk florets”.  Around this disk is a ring containing intermediate “trans florets”.  Finally, the outer petals constitute a final ring of “ray florets”. The yellow structures are the male stamens (pollen producing organs) of the trans and ray florets.

Here is how the whole flower looks like, apologizes since I couldn’t click the picture of the uncut flower and had to upload it from a website.

 

However, to examine the pollen grains I delicately extracted the stamen from the flower and dissected it. The following are the pictures of Gerbera daisies dissected stamen showing pollen grains which I captured through my microscope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rotifers-The wheeled animals

We all know that there are vast numbers of microorganisms around us and the most commonly found one are the rotifers. Rotifers have been discovered back then in 17 century by Antony Ven Lewenhook.

Rotifers are the miniature multi-celled (below 1000 cells) microorganism found in all the places of water. These are the tiniest members of the group of multicellular organisms to which we, humans belong. They are mostly about 0.1 to 0.5 mm long with a crown like ciliated structure called corona at the front. They loco mote through contracting and stretching its body.

 

 

 

A classic rotifer has a brain, digestive system, excretory system and reproductive system. Rotifers are known as wheel animals as the corona around the mouth resemble wheel in motion i.e. the two circles of constantly beating cilia for grabbing food giving the impression of rotating wheels. Sometimes these wheels-like-thing also act as propellers for moving the organism from one place to another.

Rotifers feed on all organic matter, making them the most jubilant scavengers of aquatic environment.

 

 

Microscopic view of our domestic vampires-Mosquitos

Mosquitos- a very common insect found in every corner of earth and unfortunately in my home too. I have always been mosquito’s favorite food among my family. So to have an intimate look of my blood lovers, I squashed a couple of mosquitos and studied them under my microscope. Here are a few microscopic snaps of the mosquito’s body parts.

                                             A mosquito’s Head and the tiny dots are its eyes.

A pair of Antenna to sense the body odor

 

Closer view of antenna

 

Mosquitos Wing- mosquitos have a pair of wings which are covered with fine scales. These numerous small scales are located along the veins (the mid dark lines) and edges of the wings. They help to eliminate the dust and improve flying efficiency.

40X of Scales present on the edges of wings

 

Mosquitos Larvae- showing well developed head with pin point eyes and mouth brushes which are used for feeding on microorganisms and organic matter.

 

Mosquito larvae’s breathing tube- have a very special tube attached to the tail that reaches to the water surface for breathing.