Four classes of flagellar arrangement: Flagella are the extended, lash-like projections protruding from bacteria that move said bacteria towards food and etc… Most cocci bacteria are non-motile (have no flagella). Each class of flagella has a distinct number of flagella and where the flagella are located on the bacteria is unique to each class. First there is the Monotrichous class. This class ha a single polar flagellum on one end of the bacteria or the other, an example of this is the Vibro Cholerae bacteria. Next there is the Amphitricous class. This class has one flagellum at both ends of the bacteria; an example of this class is the Alcaligenes Faecalis bacteria. The third class is that of Lophotrichous. The bacteria in this class have a tuft (multiple) flagella at one of the ends of the bacteria, or tufts at both ends of the bacteria. An example of Lophotrichous bacteria is Spirilla. The fourth and final class is Peritricous. Peritricous bacteria have flagella surrounding the cell on all sides of the bacterium. This is evidence on the Typhoid bacilli.
Inoculating with a needle vs a loop: When there is a liquid medium or during plating is when an inoculating loop is used. With a soft agar medium the inoculating needle is used to transfer specimens. A sterile needle generates a sharply well-defined stab line when used to inoculate a motility tube. This permits growth to move along this stab line and thus becomes visible which specifies that the specimen is non-motile.
Motility tube testing E. coli and S. Epidermidis: In the motility tube inoculated with E. coli it was noted that the medium was very cloudy. The motility tube inoculated with S. Epidermidis showed no signs of turbidity. Based upon these results: E. coli exhibited motility, while S. Epidermidis did not show motility. Motility is observed in the motility tube with E. coli because the bacteria E. coli has flagella. The bacteria S. Epidermidis does not have flagella hence no motility is observed in the motility tube inoculated with S. Epidermidis.
Wet mount E. coli and S. Epidermidis: E. coli exhibited motility on the wet mount slides while S. Epidermidis did not. As mentioned above, this is because E. coli has flagella and S. Epidermidis does not.
