Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Zooplantkon Question

When I float in the lake I see little creatures of varying sizes and shapes, but all little, looking kind of transparent. I was going to try and capture some today. Would live zooplankton be floating about like that, or are these dead ones, or are they like little outer layers where they may have hatched from? Inquiring minds want to know.

You are very likely seeing live zooplankton. One way to be sure is to capture some in a glass jar. Hold them up to the light and they should be moving about in short jerky movements.

Zooplankton
The zooplankton are an important link between the phytoplankton and higher trophic levels such as fish and mammals. Zooplankton constitute a diverse group of organisms with respect to size, life cycle and behaviour. The smallest size class, nanozooplankton (2-20 µm), are single celled organisms. The larger size class, the microzooplankton (20-200 µm) are dominated by ciliates and heterotrophic dinoflagellates, small metazooans as rotiferans and the earliest developmental stages of copepods. The largest size class, mesozooplankton (> 200 µm), consists of copepods, cladocerans and larvae of benthic invertebrates.


A micrometre (American spelling: micrometer, symbol µm) is an SI unit of length equal to one millionth of a metre, or about a tenth of the size of a droplet of mist or fog. It is also commonly known as a micron, although that term is officially outdated. It can be written in the expanded mathmatical notation (1×10-6 m)


0.00787401574804 of an inch = 200um

Dang, those critters are pretty small! A human hair averages .004" thick.

Where else in the world could you go to get this type of quality information? Nowhere! I will capture some tomorrow, maybe look at them through a magnifying glass, very fun to watch as I float on my air mattress - an entire world in the lake that most people are not aware of - one of the longer cone shape ones has stripes on it.
Thank you guys!

Lynda,

If you can see them as cone shaped with stripes they must be fairly large. Are you sure you're not seeing freshwater jellyfish? We have them in a couple of lakes in my area.

Boy Cecil, I don't know what they are, but surely interesting - lots of little creatures, but little, like the size of a sesame seed or 1/8" to 1/4" in length.

esshup, you must be a machinist. not many other folks no that!!!