Arcella the Shell Building Amoeba
Dear friends, it was an overwhelming week but I wanted to share the first organism I saw under the microscope. If I know myself, which I know, I may get a bit emotional, please bear with me.
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It’s an Arcella, a shell building amoeba with a beautiful name and even with a more beautiful structure. I saw Arcella for the first time during a college course, I didn't know what it was, I asked my professor and he told me it's an amoeba with a shell. I was blown away. So intrigued and shocked by the complexity of this single-celled organism.
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I learned that Arcella builds a shell for itself, hides inside, and extends parts of its cytoplasm out to walk and eat some smaller organisms. I learned that Arcella's shell is actually colorless at the beginning of its life but then when the minerals in the water seep into the shell and turn it to yellow, and even to black.
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I was so amazed, I spent most of my life just learning things. I even studied ancient Egyptian just to have knowledge. And this microworld was the thing I was missing it was perfect and so many things to learn about. It was just a bit more than three years ago, since then I read, not exaggerating, tens of thousands of pages about microorganisms and I will keep reading and learning as long as I live. And if there is an afterlife I will continue to do the same. :P
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I started my journey with a $160 microscope, I was posting on YouTube and 7 months later I started my Instagram and made my first 300 posts with that horrible microscope. People were always assuming I'm having an amazing microscope. No one was giving me credit for working so hard to get my images better and sharper. But now I have an amazing microscope and two gorgeous objectives which let me magnify 200 and 630 times. And for the first time, I feel like I have no setbacks from the technical part of the microscopy.
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Thank you so much for helping me to get where I am right now. Thank you for your comments, your donations, and your mental support.
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I will do this as long as there is a single person who reads and watches my posts.