GRAPE Sized Amoebas? WTF?

[Tuckerfan]

Okay, they’re a distant relative, but they’re still a single celled organsim.

Slowly rolling across the ocean floor, a humble single-celled creature is poised to revolutionize our understanding of how complex life evolved on Earth.

A distant relative of microscopic amoebas, the grape-sized Gromia sphaerica was discovered once before, lying motionless at the bottom of the Arabian Sea. But when Mikhail Matz of the University of Texas at Austin and a group of researchers stumbled across a group of G. sphaerica off the coast of the Bahamas, the creatures were leaving trails behind them up to 50 centimeters (20 inches) long in the mud.

“There are things on heaven and earth undreampt of in your philosophy” indeed. That this species could be almost 2 billion years old has my jaw on the floor.

[mswas]

Nice find.

[Derleth]

I won’t be satisfied until I can eat it as sushi.

The BBC has interesting commentary:

Dr Mikhail “Misha” Matz from the University of Texas at Austin, US, led the research.

“We were looking for pretty animals that have eyes, are coloured, or glow in the dark; instead, the most interesting find was the organism that was blind, brainless, and completely covered in mud,” he said.

These things would fit right in as politicians.

The researchers say the 3cm-wide, single-celled protists propel themselves using tiny protruding legs called pseudopodia.

I would love to watch one of these things move in a timelapse video.

[Spice_Weasel]

I knew it! If there are olive-sized amoebas*, there must be grape-sized amoebas. I may just cry because this is the best news ever.

*I often pretend to be an amoeba. With sound effects.

[Madd_Maxx]

I wonder if you could keep them in an aquarium. They would be better than Sea Monkeys.

[Derleth]

Here’s a thread on naked-eye-visible single-celled beings I posted in GQ. Lots of interesting links there.

[Cisco]

Awesome find. So this thing, the size of a grape, is not in any way made up of smaller cells?

[Tuckerfan]

Apparently not. Be interesting to see what it looked like all cut open. If its as big as a grape, how large is the nucleus?

[Valgard]

@Derleth

I would love to watch one of these things move in a timelapse video.

Not if it took them almost two billion years to move 20 inches

[The_Scrivener]

How much longer before they become a novelty pet in Japan?

[Autolycus]

@The_Scrivener

How much longer before they become a novelty pet in Japan?

Well, the Tamagotchi was an egg, so it’s plausible!

[Least_Original_User_Name_Ever]

@olivesmarch4th

I knew it! If there are olive-sized amoebas*, there must be grape-sized amoebas. I may just cry because this is the best news ever.

*I often pretend to be an amoeba. With sound effects.

I wish to verify this.