Diatoms from Amsterdam

Diatoms from Amsterdam

I collected some diatoms from the canals with a plankton net. Then I photographed them through my microscope. These images are focus stacked, which means that multiple images with different focal lengths were combined into a single image that is sharp everywhere.

Identifying diatoms is tedious if you are not an expert, I have no idea who we are looking at.

diatomos is Greek for divided equally. Diatom shells are made of two halves that slide into each other. When they reproduce they slide these halves apart and each gets a complementary half built into it, so that each time the diatom divides its shell gets a little smaller.

After a number of generations some shells gets so small that division is no longer possible. This is the only generation that sexually reproduces. The shells open releasing sperm or eggs. These fuse in open water and the child grows untill it can build a shell as big as only it’s great great great great great grandparents ever had.