Alright, let me tell you what I did with this giardia image thing the other day. It started because my kid brought home some pond water for a school project, you know, the kind where they look at wiggly things under a cheap microscope.
So, we got the microscope set up, an old thing I had lying around. Put a drop of the murky water on a slide, popped it under the lens. Took a bit of fiddling with the focus knob, these things are never straightforward. First, just saw a lot of blurry green stuff and some specks zipping around too fast to see properly.
Then, I spotted something… different. It wasn’t moving much, just sort of drifting. Looked kind of like a tiny, weirdly shaped teardrop or maybe a pear? It had these little dots inside, looked like eyes staring back almost. Creepy looking thing, really. Didn’t know what it was.
Getting Curious
Naturally, I got curious. Grabbed my phone, typed in something like “weird teardrop thing in pond water microscope”. Got a ton of images, all sorts of algae and amoebas. None quite matched. Then I remembered the kid’s teacher mentioning something about watching out for parasites if they ever drank untreated water.
So, I tried searching specifically for “pond water parasites microscope”. Scrolled through a few pictures. Bingo. Saw an image labeled ‘Giardia lamblia cyst’. Looked awfully familiar. That same sort of oval shape, those dot-like things inside. It wasn’t exactly the same, pictures online always look clearer, you know? But it was close.
Comparing the Views
I went back to the microscope. Found the little critter again. Squinted. Held my phone up with the Giardia image next to the eyepiece. Tried to compare them side-by-side. Shape – check. Size relative to the other gunk – seemed about right. Those internal dots – yep, definitely there.
- Found the weird shape in the water sample.
- Searched online for microscopic pond stuff.
- Found images matching parasites, specifically Giardia.
- Compared the online image directly with what was under my microscope.
The Conclusion
Pretty convinced that’s what it was. Managed to snap a fuzzy picture through the microscope eyepiece with my phone camera. Took a few tries, mostly got my own eye reflection. But one shot was okay-ish. Showed it to the kid, explained what it probably was, and made sure they understood why we don’t drink pond water. Simple process really, just looking, searching, comparing. Didn’t need any fancy lab, just the old microscope and a bit of searching online based on what I actually saw. Felt good to figure it out myself.
