A First Intact Gill Parasite From A Darter

Robert found, removed and mounted on a slide our first intact gill parasite from a rainbow darter on Tuesday. It's obviously a Dactylogyrid, but I have no idea as to genus even. The haptor hooks are obvious at one end, and the eye spots at the other. We took a digital image at 40X with a digital dissecting 'scope but the thing is only 65 micrometers long, so at that magnification it's just a pinkish blimp in the image. It could well be a juvenile. Once this week's intro biology labs are over I'll bring one of the digital compound 'scopes up so that we can make a better image of it. Ultimately we'll have to prepare whole parasites for imaging in the new confocal microscope which has huge potential for this work, but we're not there yet.

Today I hope to contact Lance at IXG and arrange for the ultimate sequencing of our latest batch of Fundulus bifax DNA, along with a few other samples. From here we'll go on to extracting DNA from F. majalis from Charleston, SC, and from the fishes that Tony from RI sent me recently. I think I even have money in an account to pay for all of this, amazingly enough!