The samplers we used are called Hester-Dendy samplers.These samplers have multiple plates bound together with a bolt and are put in the bottom of a stream. Our biology teacher bound them with string and bricks to to try to prevent them from floating away. Unfortunately, this did not work for several of the samplers. Here is a picture of a how the samplers look:metabolism
From:http://www.hesterdendy.com/
After we retrieved these yesterday, our biology teacher refrigerated them to slow down their metabolism. The next day, we retrieved them and took the plates apart. The plates were really hard to take apart, but luckily one of my classmates had pliers. When they came apart we found several macro-invertebrates, and unfortunately, or fortunately, if you like leeches, we found a giant leech. The leech was huge, and was very hard to remove from the bin we used to hold the plates. If you are unfamiliar with how leeches look here is a picture:
From:http://www.hirudolab.com/
So imagine this thing swimming incredibly fast and try to get it in a petri dish with a pipette and tweezers. Long story short, it took about five people to transfer it to the petri dish, then the vial of ethanol and then ending with me screwing the cap on. The leech did not die for awhile, but it looked kind of cool swimming in the vial. Truthfully, I do not like leeches and this experience re-enforced this feeling.
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