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Specimen
021
A short video highlighting what looks like a spinning grenade but is in fact Coleps - a barrel-shaped microbe surrounded by protective plates composed of calcium carbonate. Coleps is a rapid swimmer, revolving as it travels. They prey on the soft parts of organisms and use this spinning motion to bore out chunks of the organism they are feeding upon. Coleps also uses toxicysts, which are organelles containing poison that it uses to kill and capture its prey. From water samples collected at Kingfisher Pond in Northstowe, Cambridgeshire. |