Being an avid microscopist of diatoms I come across some really beautiful slides. However occasionally I find one which is historically interesting as well. Today I’d like to share with you one of those slides. Here’s an image of the diatom – a fragment of Stictodiscus multiplex from Jérémie, Haiti.

The slide was one I bought at Microscopium, the annual sales meeting and get together of the Quekett Microscopical Club (more about that here). It is (incorrectly) labelled as Stictodiscus buryanus, and there is no makers name.

As I was looking to ID the diatom, I went through Schmidt’s Atlas – Atlas der Diatomaceenkunde. And specifically I came across a diatom fragment on Plate 75, Figure 1 which looked suspiciously like mine. This was a fragment of Triceratium multiplex. Also, later there is an image of Stictodiscus multiplex (Plate 451, Figure 10). I think S. multiplex is the newer name for T. multiplex.

The similarity to the fragment in Plate 75 got me wondering – is the diatom on my slide the one used to make this illustration? A couple of experiments, putting them side by side and then overlaying one on the other has got me convinced that this is indeed the one used to make that illustration based on the shape of it and the dot pattern.

The fact that algae have made these structures is amazing in itself. Factor in that some (like this one) are fossils that have been in the ground for millions of years, and the mind boggles. Then to think that I have a slide which was used to make such an important reference work as Schmidt’s Atlas, it is so cool (in a very geeky, nerdy way).

As always, thanks for reading and if you’d like to know more about my work I can be reached here.

Also, you can read more about this slide, and see a full high resolution image of the fragment, on my other site – the online diatom microscopy museum, Diatomimaging.com – here.