A bell animalcule or Vorticella is a tiny animal that has the shape of a bell. Bell animalcules form an important group within the unicellular animals. They are easy to see under the microscope. The animal attaches it selves with a little stalk to water plants, detritus and even to other animals. The stalk can be retracted by contractual fibrils in case of danger. You hardly ever see it floating freely.
The bell animalcules shown here live in stagnant fresh water, in the most diverse environments such as in puddles, fens and ditches. There have cilia with which they can move the water around them. This usually causes a vortex, with which they draw bacteria to the mouth opening. There they are transported into the digestive system.
Despite its small size, it is still a fairly complex organism. The animal reproduces by division or conjugation. It has a diameter of several tenths of a mm. The lifespan is several hours to several weeks.
In the video the bell animalcules ‘play ball’ with Synura, a Golden algae. With the aid of the Motic microscope BA310E and a Motic PlanApo objective 20X, their game was recorded.
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