Sunday, December 31, 2017

Answer to Case 475

Answer: Chilomastix mesnili trophozoites.

Congratulations to Martin, Ali, Florida Fan, Mark, Atiya, Sara, and Alexandra who got this correct!

The videos show the beautiful 'spiraling' motility of this organism, similar but distinct from the 'falling leaf' motility of Giardia and the 'jerky' motility of Pentatrichomonas hominis. In the lab, of course, we would also have the final fixed morphology to aid in our diagnosis and confirm our impression from the direct preparation.

For comparison, you can view my (now very old) case of P. hominis at:
http://parasitewonders.blogspot.com/2008/01/parasite-case-of-week-5.html

And here are some beautiful videos of the falling leaf motility of Giardia by Idzi:



4 comments:

Idzi P. said...

I don’t know why, but the little critter on the bottom of the dark field clip always makes me think of that movie...”Scream”...
;-D

Anonymous said...

Idzi,
Le clip me fait penser à l'ancienne chanson "Les feuilles mortes". Merci beaucoup pour les vidéos, on ne le voit plus dans les laboratoires commerciaux puisque les échantillons sont déjà fixés.
Florida Fan

Idzi P. said...

Vrai Florida Fan, vrai...
C’est dommage, non?
Mieux demander une portion fixée et une portion non-fixée... Aussi parce-que la fixation nous empêche de faire certaines analyses supplémentaires...

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