Hydrodictyon at “Bay Gardens” Singapore

Applause IconOct 03, 2025 • 9:29 AM UTC
Location IconSingapore
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Applause IconMicroorganisms
Manu Prakash

I am a faculty at Stanford and run the Prakash Lab at Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. Foldscope community is at the heart of our Frugal Science movement - and I can not tell you how proud I am of this community and grassroots movement. Find our work here: http://prakashlab.stanford.edu

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What a lovely surprise meeting this beautiful algae - hydrodictyon - in an early morning (if you call 5am early morning, it felt like middle of the night) run in the gardens of Singapore. I found this incredible pond and it was so dark - I could not see much.
But suddenly out of the water - came out 10-15 “minks” - shouting and screaming and just having a ball. Remember - it’s 5am in the morning.
I observed them for almost 1/2hr and realized I should take a quick water sample. And indeed - I found an algae I have been looking for almost 6 years. This is hydrodictyon or “water net” algae - since it forms a beautiful geometric water net. Long time ago - I started imaging them and have been trying to catch the cell division cycle in the same for a while. Here is a view of the net microscopically and macro-scopically.
WaferNet’s are known to grow in very clean water which makes a lot of sense. They also are known to take over - and colonies can be 1 m in size. I love the geometrical patterns (see the tri-junctions) with chloroplasts. I have often seen hexagon and a pentagon. Now the puzzle I have been working on for a while is how can a “net” grow from the inside. It’s a topology problem actually - since if you are already a closed graph of pentagons or hexagons - how do you add more pentagons and hexagons. I have been looking at this data for a while - will write a longer post with the answer soon.
What is also beautiful is you can see several spores forming in the same. Now - so much can be observed and inferred by just looking. Only if we care to look deeper, look longer and look with a smile 😊
Keep smiling Singapore
Manu

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