Above is a picture taken using a microcosmos foldscope at the California Institute of Technology, in Broad 200 at around 7:45 PM, April 11, 2019. It features a small collection of circular, phallic-shaped bacteria that were present in the sample, which were static during the period of observation and when the image was taken. I know that the organisms in the sample shown above are in the Bacteria domain because they lie in the appropriate magnitude scale and these organisms thrive in those environments similar to this one. I do ask myself what species of bacterium are shown here, and I realize that there are millions of possibilities that it could be. I could potentially narrow down the search by looking up the most common type of bacteria found in ponds and then narrowing it down further using relative size and shape. The sample was obtained by the Bi 001 Section 4 Recitation TA, Amrita Rhoads, by collecting liquid from Millikan pond in a 16 oz cup.
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