A Life and Death Drama Plays Out.(with low power clip for size reference)

Seen here is an extreme close-up of the internal structure of two large protozoa with smaller protists swimming between them. At 0:58, the camera pans up and another small protist is seen swimming inside of the larger organism. At 1:50, this smaller protists swims through and ruptures the cell membrane of the larger protist. Immediately, the larger protists suffers a catastrophic breakdown of it’s internal structure and the cell membrane is breached spilling it’s contents into the surrounding water. This results in the death of the larger protist. The smaller protozoan is not an offspring of the larger one but rather appears to have entered the organism either by being ingested or by crossing the cell membrane without rupturing it. Lighting is a combination of three microscopy techniques; phase contrast, darkfield lighting and polarization lighting. Magnification is 625X and the camera is the Nikon D4.