The Ossicle Sorter Photos

In a way, it is bioengineering at its finest--lab innovation at its purest, most basic level. It is a creation born out of necessity, an apparatus assembled from the materials at hand: a plastic weighing tray sitting casually by the chlorides, the elusive electrical tape that everybody needs once you've started using it, the tiny eppendorf tubes that make it look like you've collected a lot more than is actually there--all bound together by an overabundance of tape. But don't be deceived, the sorter is a very necessary tool in sorting the microscopic bones of brittle stars.

3 Eppendorf tubes are attached to receive ossicles through holes poked in the tray.
The three different types of bones are lateral, top/bottom shields, and vertebrae.

What appears to be white dust or powdered sugar is, in fact, hundreds of brittle star ossicles (tiny bones).

This light microscope has just enough magnification to allow the user to distinguish one type of ossicle from the other.

These are the leftover spines of a rather dirty batch of O. californica ossicles.
Since the spines aren't thought to play a role in the bioluminscence of the brittle star arms or have any unique refractive properties, they're just left behind on the tray.