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Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter
from the February 9, 2014 Newsletter issued from the Frio Canyon Nature Education Center in the valley of the Dry Frio River in northern Uvalde County, southwestern Texas, on the southern border of the Edwards Plateau; elevation ~1750m (~5750 ft); N29.62°, W99.86°; USA
LACUSTRIS
While scanning through the galaxy of green Chlamydomonas cells I came upon a cluster of reddish items looking very much like red blood cells, or erythrocytes, as shown above.
Once again I had to resort to the identification technique of browsing thumbnail images summoned through Google's image-search feature, this time using the keywords "algae unicellular freshwater reddish." Though amateurish, this technique can be surprisingly useful. Within seconds a good match appeared, a picture of HAEMATOCOCCUS LACUSTRIS.
Haematococcus lacustris occurs worldwide, except in Antarctica, and is found mostly in temporary pools of freshwater.
You might recall that the world of algae is divided into large groupings such as the green algae, brown algae, diatoms and red algae. Our alga, despite its reddish color in our picture, is classified as a green alga, which means it's a member of the Division Chlorophyta. Its chloroplasts often turn red when conditions become unfavorable, so apparently our cells feel stressed as their pool slowly dries up.
As with the smaller, greener Chlamydomonas algae surrounding our Birdbath Alga's cells, Haematococcus cells are equipped with two hairlike flagella which when wiggled enable the cells to move about, but -- also as with the Chlamydomonas -- under our light microscope the flagella remain invisible.
Haematococcus lacustris is known for it's ability to survive under a wide range of unfavorable conditions.