Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month for March 2001

This month's fungus is Phytophthora infestans, cause of late blight of potato and the Irish potato Famine

For the rest of my pages on fungi, please click http://TomVolkFungi.net

Phytophthora swimming zoospores escaping from a zoosporangium

Copyright © 2001 by Tom Volk. Please do not link to this video without permission.

Video digitized by Chrissy Harbin of La Crosse, Wisconsin, with additional editing by Rob Tyser

This is not time lapse video, but normal speed. The video is about 15 seconds of a 26-minute tape I made with Diane Derouen in Madison in 1994. I have larger and longer digitized versions of this, but they're much too big to put online.

Note the zoospores squeezing out of the exit papilla at the top of the zoosporangium, then swimming around.

Please wait for the video to load-- it is about 232 kB. You can scroll down and read the page while you're waiting. If you don't see anything in the above space, you may need an upgrade to your plugin. To get the free Apple QuickTime4 player, click here. You may have to reboot your browser to see the video after instaling QuickTime. This movie is not a talkie. This is my first digital video online, and I'm hesitant to put it up because I can't get it to work on every computer I've tried-- although I've succeeded on more than 75%. You might have to update your plugins to get it to work. If you have helpful suggestions please let me know, but please don't write just to tell me it doesn't work-- I don't know enough about this to help you. Thanks for your patience.

Here's an alternate page without the video.