“We’ve only just scratched the surface,” he said, “but we’re very dogmatic.”
That orthodoxy began to crack in the 1990s. Microbiologists have discovered that some bacteria have developed their own compartments independently. They also found species that are visible to the naked eye. Epulopiscium fishelsonifor example, appeared in 1993. While living inside a surgeon’s fish, the bacteria grew up to 600 microns long – larger than a grain of salt.
Thiomargarita magnifica was discovered by Olivier Gros, a biologist at the University of the Antilles in 2009 while surveying mangroves in Guadeloupe, a group of Caribbean islands that are part of France. The microbes look like tiny bits of white spaghetti, forming a layer on dead leaves that float in the water.
At first, Dr. Gross didn’t know what he had found. Spaghetti is thought to have been a fungus, small sponge, or other eukaryote. But when he and his colleagues extracted DNA from samples in the lab, they discovered it was bacteria.
Dr Gross has joined forces with Dr Voland and other scientists to take a closer look at alien creatures. They wondered if the bacteria were microscopic cells held together in chains.
It turned out not to be so. When the researchers peered into the bacterial paste using an electron microscope, they realized that each was its own giant cell. The average cell is about 9,000 microns long, and the largest is 20,000 microns – long enough for a penny in diameter.
The study of Thiomargarita magnifica was slow because of Dr. Valante and his colleagues haven’t figured out how to grow the bacteria in their lab yet. Currently, Dr. Gross had to collect a fresh supply of bacteria every time the team wanted to run a new experiment. He could find it not only in leaves, but in oyster shells and plastic bottles found in sulfur-rich sediments in mangroves. But bacteria seem to follow an unpredictable life cycle.
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