A rather mysterious slide labelled Stictodiscus (16? sides). Single example on the slide. Mounted in Sty-Aroc, and dated July (19)75. Circa. 200µm diameter. Prepared by Richard Gosden. Olympus BHB microscope using 450nm LED light. The small coverslip (and ring) meant access with this objective was a problem and I had to use a 20x objective. 20x Nikon Plan Apo NA 0.65 objective. Olympus Aplanat Achromat condenser, oil immersion, oblique lighting. 2.5x Nikon CF PL photoeyepiece. Monochrome converted Nikon d850 camera. 41 images stacked in Zerene (Pmax).
I say mysterious, as I am not really sure what this is. It does appear to have 16 ‘lobes’ around its rim, and I have not seen anything quite like it before. A diatomist friend mentioned to me that it may not even be a Stictodiscus, and I am leaving a question mark after the name. If you have any ideas as to what it is please let me know.
NOTE – I will return to this description when I have looked more into what species it could be. I also want to find out more about where this was collected. The slide says “Sth (or perhaps 5th) Atlantic Deep Sea Core Sample 1″. I have another slide from that location here.