Nice SEMs

[Tintenfisch]

Hmmm, no new posts in the onychoteuthid section since late 2008 - we can't have that! I've been sorting out all of the SEM stubs I've accumulated over the last 5 years and getting them, and the images themselves, ready to return to the museums they were loaned from. Thought the community might also enjoy seeing some of these images.

Here are some radulae:

 

[Tintenfisch]

And some suckers from paralarval Onykia specimens:

 

[Tintenfisch]

And some tentacular hooks from adults:

 

[sorseress]

I'd sure hate to meet any of those in a dark alley!

 

[Brock Fluharty]

Those hooks are wicked looking. Perfect for grabbing unsuspecting prey.

 

[mucktopus]

Nice radulae! Those can be so hard to work with.

 

[Tintenfisch]

Yes, I've certainly botched mounting them a few times...

 

[cuttlegirl]

Thanks for posting these SEMs, it makes me want to go find all my old pictures... in a box somewhere, from a few states ago...

 

[cuttlegirl]

Yes, I've certainly botched mounting them a few times...

Yeah, it is hard to stop breathing while mounting specimens for SEM...

 

[Architeuthoceras]

These are some very Kool Pictures Kat!

 

[Jean]

very nice!

J

 

[DWhatley]

Kat, do you know the magnification levels on the radula and suckers? Seeing the "plunger" effect more or less as a functional sequence is neat. Any more "how it works" pictures?

 

[cuttlegirl]

D,

In the pictures there is a measurement bar in microns. A micron is 1000th of a millimeter. Does this help? In the top left picture of the radula, the bar is 200 microns - that is about the width of three of the middle teeth, so the width of three of the middle teeth would be 0.2 millimeters. On the bottom left image of the hooks, the width is 1 millimeter, so the total length of that hook would be about 1.5 millimeters.

 

[DWhatley]

A little after I enlarged the photos to read them but I am afraid I don't get the spacial feel for how many times reality I am looking at when somthing is stated that way. If the bar in the key is 200 x .001 or .2 mm I can look at a tape and guestimate 1/5 th of a mm but that does not help me visuallize the magnification level - just did not do bio in college (night classes meant astromomy even though I wanted to take biology) and have not even toyed with a microscope since I was a kid.

 

[cuttlegirl]

In the first photo of the radula, it says 1600x magnified, but that is not taking into account the size of the image that you are viewing. If you enlarge the photos, then you are magnifying it even further. Are you confused yet?