How to Culture Paramecium? How to make permanent slide of paramecium? How Paramecium is classified? What is Mayer's Albumen?

1. How to culture and make
permanent slide of
Paramecium?
Shreeram Ghimire, Department of Zoology, Amrit Campus, Thamel, Kathmandu
shreeram@shreeramghimire.com, ghimireshreeram25@gmail.com

2. Paramecium
 Basic Features:
 Commonly called slipper animalcule due to having due to slipper like shape.
 Nearly 0.3 mm in length.
 Body is covered by elastic membrane called pellicle. Cilia arise from pellicle.
 Outer dense ectoplasm and inner semifluid endoplasm are clearly seen forming protoplasm.
 Ectoplasm contains cilia and trichocysts.
 Endoplasm contains various organelles like two nuclei: one macronucleus and one micronucleus,
two contractile vacuoles, reserve food materials (glycogen and fat) and cytopharynx.
 Digestion: it is through phagocytosis. Paramecium engulfs bacteria, diatom and other small
organisms through oral groove indicating holozoic nutrition.
 It can reproduce by both sexually and asexually. Asexual method is transverse binary fission and
sexual method is conjugation.

3. Classification
 Phylum: Protozoa
 Sub-phylum: Ciliophora
 Class: Ciliata
 Sub-class: Euciliata
 Order: Hymenostomatida
 Family: Parameciidae
 Genus: Paramecium
 Species: caudatum

4. Culture Method
 Collect paramecia sample from nearby lake or pond rich in decaying organic matter
 Prepare medium of culture: boil few (20-25) grains of wheat and hay or dead leaves and
cool the boiled mixture
 Add already collected pond water containing paramecia in the culture medium
 Place the culture bottle or beaker in the room with temperature of 80-85°F for 4-5 days
 Swarm of paramecia will appear in beaker

6. Permanent Mounting of Paramecium
 Take a slide and place a drop of Mayer’s albumen at the center to make a thin film
 Place few drops of Paramecium cultured fluid (with abundant Paramecium)
 Place a drop of absolute alcohol to fix paramecium specimen and dry it
 Wash the slide with distilled water
 Stain the specimen with hematoxylin and again wash it with water
 Dehydrate the slide with 30% alcohol (5 minutes), 50% alcohol (5 minutes), 70% alcohol (5
minutes) and stain the sample with eosin solution; again dehydrate with 90% alcohol (5
minutes), absolute alcohol (7 minutes)
 Clear the slide in xylol and mount in Canada balsam
 Gentle heating or use of small droplets of xylol can help to remove air droplet formed
during mounting

7. What is Mayer’s Albumen?
 Mayer’s albumen is a chemical solution used to fix the small organisms and cut the
extremely thin and small sections of materials (or microtome).
 It is prepared by mixing White part of egg (albumen), Glycerine and Sodium salicylate. 50
ml of egg albumen, 50 ml of Glycerine and 1 gram of Sodium salicylate are mixed and the
solution is filtered to make Mayer’s albumen.