Thecamoeba attacked by Nuclearia?
Observation: In November 2015 I made a wet mount with some material from a sample from China. The wet mount was kept for about two months in a moisture chamber before most protists had died. In this mount a number of specimens of a Thecamoeba species were growing well. With their thick cell membrane they were easy to detect. In the same mount also a Nuclearia species was present for some weeks. Later I found some “membranes” with in each two Nuclearia cysts. I couldn’t observe what happened, but the “membranes” were obviously remnants of Thecamoeba specimens. It is possible that Nuclearia specimens penetrated the Thecamoeba cell and encysted there, but was this after the amoeba had died? Anyway an interesting observation without a clear answer.
