There’s a new record holder for biggest bacterium — and you don’t need a microscope to see it.
The newfound species, Thiomargarita magnifica, is roughly a centimeter long, and its cells are surprisingly complex, researchers report in the June 24 Science.
The bacterial behemoth is roughly the size and shape of a human eyelash, marine biologist Jean-Marie Volland of the Laboratory for Research in Complex Systems in Menlo Park, Calif., said June 21 at a news conference. Maxing out at approximately 2 centimeters, T. magnifica is about 50 times the size of other giant bacteria and about 5,000 times the size of most other average-size bacterial species.
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