Microscopic Crustaceans

My study of carcinology (the study of crustaceans) began at the University of New Hampshire when I was working as a lab tech at the Center of Freshwater Biology. I identified freshwater zooplankton of the Northeast, such as daphnia, ostracods and copepods, and helped improve an online key that the lab had created. I had elementary training using Dreamweaver and now I'm trying to learn more about web design to improve this blog and for useful general knowledge. A significant number of improvements have been made to the key since I used it last and I took the pictures displayed here from it. If you are interested in learning more about the thrilling world of zooplankton, it's full of cool videos and photos of zooplankton eating and doing other various activities.  : )

I have to say that my favorite group to identify were the rotifers because they were super cute like this guy though their identifying characteristics were sometimes difficult to see. This species is Branchionus angularis, which I added to the key myself.

I didn't like to identify the copepods as much because you have to count the number of segments on the antennules and sometimes determine whether there was a ridge on their rami (which is their last segment with the long hairy extensions that look like their tail) or if the rami was hairy, which was difficult especially when the sample was degraded. This is a photo of a male copepod, which you can determine because he is flexing his muscles. : )

This is a photo of a female copepod. The black blobs on either side of its last segment are her eggs. 

 And here's a photo of a Daphnia species. This species has is named retrocurva because it has a long curved head. This specimen has a tiny head compared to others I've seen.