Artifacts
Scroll down to see an assortment of artifacts commonly found in fecal smears and floats of dogs and cats.
Free living mite and mite egg (dog feces)
Above: Stained with iodine
Below: unstained and at a higher magnification
Yeast (Saccharomycopsis gutulatus): this is a normal inhabitant of the gut of rabbits, it is commonly found in fecal floats done on dogs that ate rabbit feces. It is not pathogenic and it just passes through the dog.
Plant cells
Free living mites and mite egg (dog feces)
Monocystis sp. sporocyst and plant nematode in dog feces (10X).
Monocystis sp. sporocyst (40X) (100X)
Monocystis sp. is a protozoan parasite of earthworms. The sporocysts appear in the feces of animals (usually dogs and turtles) that have eaten infected earthworms. The sporocysts are not infectious to dogs and the dog is not infected with the parasite. Plant nematodes also just "pass through" the dog; they can be identified as a plant nematode if the "spears" they use to puncture plant cell-walls can be seen in the buccal cavity.
Pollen in dog feces
Pine pollen in dog feces
Air bubble
Eimeria sp. oocyst in dog feces. Eimeria spp. do not infect dogs, this oocyst (~ 40 µm) was ingested with something the dog ate (maybe horse or cattle manure!) and just passed through the dog. (Photo by Terri Jarratt and used with permission.)
Plant spine Plant Fiber
Plant cell
Fungal spores
Note the small piece of the hypha still attached to one end of each of the spores.
