World’s Largest Bacteria Discovered: 1 Centimeter Long

Bacteria, which are classified as microorganisms, are usually measured with a micrometer, which corresponds to one thousandth of a millimeter. While almost none of the bacteria can be seen with the naked eye, there are still a few species that can be seen with the naked eye. For example, the bacterium ‘thiomargarita namibinensis’ can be about half a millimeter in length and visible to the naked eye.

Today, scientists came up with an example of a much larger species in bacteria. In the same family as the above example bacterium ‘thiomargarita magnificaof a bacterium to one centimeter was found to be accessible. The bacterium was found on rotting mangrove tree leaves buried underwater in the French Caribbean.

It hasn’t reached its greatest form yet.

Bacteria had an average cell length of 2 micrometers, while magnifica had a cell length of about 9,000 micrometers, or close to 1 centimeter. Moreover, magnifica, according to scientists It wasn’t even at its tallest. According to scientists, bacteria can grow up to two centimeters in length.

On the other hand ‘largest bacteria‘, Thiomargarita magnifica was far from achieving the title of the largest single-celled organism ever discovered. Magnifica is the largest single-celled organism ever discovered, though 5,000 times larger than most bacteria. 10 times bigger was. The bacterium in question was a type of algae called Caulerpa taxifolia.

So how does such a large bacterium survive?

Until recently, the scientific world argued that these creatures could not reach a visible size due to the way bacteria interact with their environment and produce energy. The examinations on Magnifica provided a great deal of information about the bacteria that reached this size. Magnifica’s energy-generating has an extensive membrane networkthus revealing that it does not rely solely on its surface to absorb nutrients through the cell.

Moreover, unlike most bacteria, whose single cells contain freely floating genetic material, magnifica keeps its cell’s DNA in small bags with a membrane called “pepin”. This method, in fact, constitutes our bodies, animals and plants. a property of more complex cells known as.