See subject. I’m sure there’s one staring at me in the face, but I can’t think of any.
Yes.
Huh. Fuckin’ A.
Cite says “unique” morphology. Sub-cite shows them moving via flagella. Tum-Tum-Tumbling Dice.
Thanks for instant response/cite. I take it you’ve thought of OP or were impressed by the organism before?
I would like to follow up with bio-smarties here, or anybody, on what gives with the morphology.
I guess the square shape lets them pack into sheets efficiently. Do they have hexagonal cousins?
I thought of SpongeBob, but I didn’t want to get silly with my own OP before the requisite serious responses came in.
Triceratium diatomscan also be quite square.
There’s also the box jellyfish. Unique not only for its cuboidal form, but also for being the only known jellyfish with real eyes (24 of them!), and the closest thing any jellyfish has to a brain. Also, some species’ sting is deadly in a matter of minutes.
Hey, bio-smarty phoning in. I’ve been intending on replying to this for a couple of days, but only got a chance to sit down and look into it today.
As far as the morphology goes, the shape of the cell isn’t a flat square but rather something like a flattened cylinder -think of a pillowcase, I guess. These organisms live in extremely hostile environments, and are pretty much the only living things around. Without life surrounding you, there are next to no nutrients to consume. One way microorganisms deal with this is to increase their surface: volume ratio so they can absorb more food – that explains the flatness.
Why a square? ZenBeam hit the nail on the head, the idea is to take up the whole area of the water surface without cell overlap (in order to get maximum sunlight to obtain a bit more energy). Honestly though, to me it seems a little pat, I would want to see them actually colonizing in flat sheets before I believed it.
As to ZenBeam’s question about ‘hexagonal cousins’, not as far as I know, but I figure I might as well mention that the surface of the cell contains a lattice of structural proteins in a hexagonal formation.
Also, I’m pretty sure they’re not flagellated. So no tumbling dice, sorry. Happy to be proven wrong though.
Sources:
Bolhuis, Henk et al.: The genome of the square archaeon Haloquadratum walsbyi : life at the limits of water activity. BMC Genomics; 2006
Bolhuis H: Walsby’s square archaeon; it’s hip to be square but even more hip to be culturable. In Adaptation to life at high salt concentrations in archaea, bacteria and eukarya. Springer; 2005
Are hydrophobic/phylic conditions like this (product vid, at 1:50) what may be going on? I couldn’t follow the chemistry of these creatures, except that they were close to crystalline. Of course this scenario and shape are forced.
Don’t forget plants of the mint family, which have square stems.
All could think of is wombat poop.
That’s a fascinating vid there. A problem of square pegs and round holes. from now on when I’m on the crapper with kryptonite constipation, I will think about what the wombat goes through, if the researcher’s etiology is correct. Even if it’s not.
What about the boxfish?
Can’t help wondering if the cubical form of salt crystals and the square morphology of this salt-loving organism could be somehow less than coincidental- is that what you’re referring to?
Exactly.
Waiting for bio-smarty.