Scientists have discovered the world’s largest-known bacterium, in the form of white filaments the size of human eyelashes, on the surfaces of decaying mangrove leaves in a swamp in Guadeloupe in the Caribbean Sea.
Around 1 cm long, Thiomargarita magnifica is 50 times larger than all other known giant bacteria and the first to be visible with the naked eye. Researchers have compared it to a human encountering another human as tall as Mount Everest.
In most bacteria, the genetic material floats around freely inside the cell. T. magnifica keeps its genetic material inside membrane- bound compartments throughout the cell. It was also found to contain three times as many genes as most bacteria.
The discovery suggests that “large and more complex bacteria may be hiding in plain sight”.
Picture Credit : Google
