lettuce nudi eggs

[scuba_steveo]

I have eggs everywhere! True perc eggs and lettuce nudibranch eggs. Instar has been over at my house all day helping me get green water up and running so I can TRY to raise the clowns. Here are the pics of the nudi eggs:

[Instar]

They are fertile too.

Here is a picture of them about 4 hours old and you can see the single cell zygote has divided twice over into 4 cells inside each egg.

http://www.maast.org/albums/Instar/Lettuce_Nudi_Eggs_4_hours.jpg

[NaCl_H2O]

COOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you end up with 10,000 Nudis - I'll take a couple of Hundred :-D

[scuba_steveo]

Sweet pic larry, thanks for everything!

[Tim Marvin]

Instar, awesome picture!!!!

[GaryP]

Embryology 101....

[cpreefguy]

talk about a macro shot

[Tim Marvin]

Embryology 101, but do you have the capability of doing a picture like that? I don't.

[scuba_steveo]

Larry, do you have an updated pic?
I would like to see how my babies are doing

[GaryP]

Steve is shuch a proud pappa...

Tim - Just wait until Larry gets the $7000 microscope he's been wanting. Larry's house already looks like a marine biology lab.

Gary

[Tim Marvin]

I bet, I keep wanting to get over there but have yet to make it.

[GaryP]

Tim,

I can give you name of the safari guide that I used to take me to his house. Its not the end of the earth, but you can see it from there.

Gary

[Tim Marvin]

Do I have to get in by mule train?

[GaryP]

No, the giude provides burros.

Gary

[GaryP]

No, the giude provides burros.

Gary

[Instar]

Here they are at 3 days old. They are very active inside the shell. I'll try to get a better shot of them, but for now this description will have to do. The little lava inside the clear egg shell has a clear shell similar to a nerite snail shell. It has about 1/2 turn to it and houses the yolk. The rolled sensory organs and start of the eyes extends outside the shell opening. Can you see the hair algae that is imbedded in the gel capsule of the egg strand? I am presuming this is to become the larva's first food. I'm excited about this! Has anyone counted how many are in that strand yet? I hope they live... this is the first eggs of these guys for me. They are extremely similar to the Berghia at this point.

I have a couple of movies of them too if someone can tell me how to post such a thing here?

Magnified x60:
http://www.maast.org/albums/Instar/Lettuce_Nudi_Eggs_3_Days3.jpg

Magnified x200:
http://www.maast.org/albums/Instar/Lettuce_Nudi_Eggs_3_Days2.jpg

[GaryP]

The parent embeds hair algae in the egg case? That's interesting.

Gary

[scuba_steveo]

Instar, AWESOME pics! And yes gary I am a proud pappa. But then again, maybe I should not be a proud pappa... after all, I sent them to live with someone else even before they were born. Instar, the first pic you posted was very clear and the third appears to be more blurry. It now looks like there is one embryo inside each egg and not four like the first pic. Can you please explain?

[GaryP]

Steve,

Its difficult to take micro pics of a large 3 dimensional object. There's not a lot of depth of field in micro pics. Some of the more expensive scopes allow you to take a composite pic at several different focus points. Those are pretty research quality scopes though.

Gary

[Instar]

The "4" inside the first picture is 1 embryo. It begins as a single fertile cell, just like you did. It looks like 4 because that single cell divided while I was at your house and then divided again on the trip to my house, thus making it a 4 celled zygote or embryo. Over the hours each division is very visible under the scope. Its easy to see the 4 turn into 8, then 8 to 16, into 32. I start loosing count at 64. The cells get smaller and smaller, more precise in their function as they go. In the first hours the way those cells will develop is already decided... one end will be the head, the other the tail. I can see them very clearly with my lenses its just hard to get the light right for the eye of the camera. I take dozens of shots to maybe get one that you can almost see. I'll take more, one is bound to be better. They don't hold still anymore either, so that doesn't help with clarity. They're very motile little rascals now.

[GaryP]

Here's a another factoid for you. Remember all the hullabaloo during the election about fetal stem cells?

Well.. you are looking at them. At this stage the cells you are looking at are all stem cells, just not human stem cells of course.

Gary

[Instar]

Fisrt the description, then the mystery.
Inside the clear egg shell, after all the divisions, on the second day they appear to hatch or metamorphos. At this time they suddenly GAIN a clear snail like shell around the abdomen, yolk and body parts. The head or two coiled sensory organs extends from the shell opening. Their eyes are right at the edge of the shell and mostly not visible in the pictures. The small foot is snail like under the shell. They can move fairly rapidly as they explore the outer walls of their confining egg case and twil around in the sphere. Its hard to focus because the egg case is clear, the protective shell is clear and the animal is white translucent. In the enlarged picture, the one most toward the middle you can see the foot to the right, the sensory organs coiled to about 1 o'clock and the shell to the left side. Inside the middle of the shell is the animal and that little dense spot inside the shell is some yolk material. Since they are flipping all around in their weightless spheres, you can see them from all kinds of angles.

The Mystery:There is an inner snail like shell that is the developmental home now and protects these larva in their first hours after hatching. It appears in that one majic moment on the second day after the "stem" cells have divided numerous times. Where does that "instant shell" come from???

Magnified x60:
http://www.maast.org/albums/Instar/Lettuce_Nudi_Eggs_4_Days2.jpg

Magnified x200:
http://www.maast.org/albums/Instar/Lettuce_Nudi_Eggs_4_Days.jpg

[::pete::]

Steve,

Its difficult to take micro pics of a large 3 dimensional object. There's not a lot of depth of field in micro pics. Some of the more expensive scopes allow you to take a composite pic at several different focus points. Those are pretty research quality scopes though.

Gary

If you have a piece of black acrylic or something similiar hold it behind the subject and the camera should have a better chance of focusing.

Great shots !!

[scuba_steveo]

Instar that is just too cool. Most of what you are saying is greek to me but I understand that they are doing what they should be doing. Thanks for the updates.

[Instar]

I was asked for an update, so here it is...
Lettuce slug eggs at 12 days.
They have picked up some pigments along the flanks and behind the clearly developed eyes now. This is very hard to focus and photograph due to the cloudy gel casing of the egg coil. Its become cloudier and the embedded algae is starting to grow a little making them harder to see. They also seem to be able to see and react to visual stimuli.
http://www.maast.org/albums/Instar/Lettuce_Slug_Eggs_12_Days.jpg

[oceancube]

man i sure hope those are lettuce snail eggs, and not some sort of baby aliens, looks creepy, i would be very scared at night to sleep in the same place those are!! B.T.W looks interesting!!

[Instar]

LoL -- I picked up another couple thousand of these "aliens" tonight and got to photograph the within egg metamorphosis from an undifferentiated cell mass into the shell covered whatever this thing is called at this point. That was quite cool.

These things have to be pretty close to hatch day at this point.

[scuba_steveo]

Awesome Instar!!!
Where did you get the new couple thousand eggs from?

[GaryP]

I showed him some eggs in one of the tanks at Fin-Addict and Felipe gave them to him.

Larry is out to corner the nudi market. He's going to be the largest breeder of nudi in Floresville. Remember when he was always begging for aiptasia to feed his berghias, well... start looking for Bryopsis in your tanks.

Gary