Tiny copepod – food for whales!!!

Dec 19, 2014 • 12:21 PM UTC

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140x Magnification

Microorganisms

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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Copepods are crustaceans living in fresh water and the ocean. They are phenomenal in many different ways, and so abundant that a whale can feed on a diet of copepods. That’s one factoid that “blows my mind”..
Whenever I put a little plankton net in the ocean outside my home; I get plenty of these guys caught. I made a simple plankton net using a “pantyhose” – simple and cheap.
Methods:
1. A glass of ocean water will most likely contain plenty of these guys. They swim fast, so catch them in a glass/cup and transfer a drop to the slide.
2. I love live microscopy, so I was careful to not squeeze them too much..
3. I images them with 140x Foldscope and my iPhone 5 coupler.
Enjoy the video:

Observations:
1. I was delighted to see the two egg sacs (you will see the two punches attached to the body of the mother) in the end of the video. If you watch them carefully (I will post more videos soon – you can see little copepods developing inside each egg sac).
2. Copepods can move very fast.. They use oars for the same. In the first part of the video – you can see the oars and also see the mechanics of muscles controlling some of the oars.
3. A peristaltic pump is seen in the end of the video – this is why I love live microscopy.