The World’s Largest Bacterium (Spoiler, it's BIG)

This is something mind blowing I came across while writing yesterday's post.

When we talk about bacteria, we imagine of tiny organisms that are not visible to the naked eye. But nature never fails to amaze!

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There is one bacteria species that can only be described as fucking gigantic. And it's big enough to be visible to the naked eye!

The species is called Thiomargarita magnifica and it was first discovered sometime in the 2010s in the swamps of Guadeloupe. However, due to its size it was first thought to be some short of fungi so nobody showed it the attention it deserved. It was only five years later when the guy who first stumbled on it and his team figured it was something totally different.

And it wasn't until 2022 that the species was formally described!

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How big does it get?
Individuals can grow to be up to 2 cm. Yes. centimeters. That's almost one inch! That is simply enormous considering how most bacteria are just a micrometer long

I asked chatgpt to put this into scale for humans cause I was too lazy to do the maths, here's what it came up with:

1.7 meters × 20,000 = 34,000 meters (34 km or 21 miles) tall! That’s taller than Mount Everest (8.8 km) and even higher than commercial airplanes typically fly (10–12 km). A human at this scale would literally tower above the clouds!

So yeah, that's one big ass bacterium lol 😂

Why it gets so big?
Honestly this is nothing close to my expertise but from the little I understood after reading about it, it's a combination of numerous factors, like how it stores energy and how its DNA is stored. And honestly... I don't care. It's just awesome 😎

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Here's a video from one of the guys in the research team talking about it:

And here's another one, mostly a mash up of images if you are curious how this little fella looks like:

And finally, here's a link to the paper describing the species if you would like to read more on it!

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Ok, hope you enjoyed reading about yet another wonder of nature. See you soon with more 😎

Posted Using INLEO