Where your polyps live - Electron Microscopy Images of an SPS Coral

[Neuratox]

Good afternoon everyone. I'm a Biology PhD student studying neural circuits/GPCRs/behavior and wanted to take a class to improve my microscopy skills in preparation for much of my research. The class has had several assigned projects that are meant to allow the students to investigate something that they're interested in that isn't related to their research focus in an attempt to make us "well rounded" ;p So far I've imaged taste buds in bonnethead hammer head sharks (yes the have them, but not on their tongue -aka basihyal) and today I just finished another project on the electron microscope. For this project I knew I wanted to stay with my aquatic theme and I needed a sample that wasn't alive and I could dry out or was already dry. I remembered that one of the first corals in my reef tank (a pink birdsnest coral) didn't make it and I had kept the bleached skeleton. I opted to use it for the project.

In the images that follow, I have attempted to focus on the same location on the sample. Unfortunately, I dropped the bleached frag just before clipping a piece off to mount and it looks like something got onto it when this happened (whatever it is it looks like a caltrop). As I zoomed in, I tried to remain focused on the opening where the polyps emerge from as long as possible, until all that would have been visible would have been a gaping hole. At that point I shifted the focus to the side to provide a better image of the skeletal structure.

Enjoy!

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

What a place to call home haha

Thanks for sharing! Good luck with your studies!

 

[Hemmdog]

Thanks for sharing! I love this kind of stuff!

 

[Salty Lemon]

This is neat! Thanks!

 

[BestMomEver]

I would have never thought in a million years that a coral skeleton would look like that! Way cool!

 

[virtual reality]

Thank you, that is really cool.

 

[Kremis]

Very cool thank you for sharing

 

[rkpetersen]

Nice.
You can actually make out the 6-fold symmetry of the septae as found in all hexacoral corallites, but not always so apparent.
And it's neat to see how bits of aragonite calcium carbonate are laid down, semi-orderly and semi-haphazard.