Getting trichocysts to fire in ciliates

[Kathleen Anderson]

James Mahaffy (mahaffy at dordt.edu) wrote:

[...]

:      Anyone have a pretty sure fire way to get trichocysts to
: fire on demand from ciliates?  I have a lab, I teach in Zoology 
: where we use Paramecium and some other ciliates (wild varieties I 
: have gathered).  The methods suggested by the lab manual just do not
: work that reliably. They suggest both fountain pen ink and acetic
: acid.  

[...]

I've seen it done with the filtrate from crushed geranium leaves. I 
didn't see or do the filtrate prep, but it was yellowish green, and had 
not been heated. It worked quite well and quite quickly.

Hope this helps...

--
Kathleen Anderson
vstr18a at sfsu.edu