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Specimen
002
Most people think of amoeba as shapeless, jelly-like organisms but this is certainly not the case with this unusual amoeba we captured on video today - Vampyrella, the Vampire Amoeba. Vampyrella is a genus of amoebae which is spherical, with long, spiky pseudopods radiating from the cell's surface. Like other amoebae, Vampyrella move by stretching out its cell, losing some of its spherical shape and taking a more typical amoeboid form (as you can see from this video). Why is it called the Vampire amoeba? This is because it uses its spiky pseudopods to perforate the cell wall of algae cells and suck out the contents for nourishment. You can see the amoeba, midway in this video, prodding a mass of organic matter with its 'spikes', looking for something to eat. The Vampire amoeba moves very slowly, which is why we had to record this observation at 6X normal speed. |