Omphalopelta versicolor mounted in Styrax. Single example on the slide. Prepared by Watson and Sons Ltd. Olympus BHB microscope using 450nm LED light. 40x Leitz Pl Apo NA 1.00 objective, oil immersion. Olympus Aplanat Achromat condenser, oil immersion, oblique lighting. 2.5x Nikon CF PL photoeyepiece. Monochrome converted Nikon d850 camera. 101 images stacked in Zerene (Pmax). The ‘colour’ part is lost with the monochrome image, so I am also including a photo under white light, with a 10x objective, and Canon EOS 5DSR camera.
Omphalopelta versicolor Ehrenberg, 1844. Original description: Ehrenberg, C.G. (1844). Untersuchungen über die kleinsten Lebensformen im Quellenlande des Euphrats und Araxes, so wie über eine an neuen Formen sehr reiche, marine Tripelbildung von den Bermuda-Inseln. Bericht über die zur Bekanntmachung geeigneten Verhandlungen der Königlich-Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1844: 253-275, 1 pl. Page 270. I presume this is the same as Actinoptychus heliopelta var. versicolor.
I have shared a few examples of ‘Omphalopelta versicolor‘ on this site now, and they all look slightly different. Perhaps this is not a single species….