Researchers from the University of the West Indies recently announced that they had discovered in a mangrove in Guadeloupe and identified the largest bacterium ever observed.

Called

Thiomargarita magnifica

by scientists, the living organism is visible to the naked eye.

It can indeed reach the extraordinary length of 2 cm, specifies La Première.

Ten years of scientific work

Until then, the longest bacterium studied by researchers measured one millimeter.

It was a microbe found in Namibia.

Besides its size,

Thiomargarita magnifica

is distinguished by its complexity.

It took ten years for the specialists who brought it to light to determine what type of organism they were dealing with.

They finally established that the bacterium was a prokaryote, that is to say a single-celled element, with a longiline morphology and devoid of a nucleus.

The study of the discovery, however, is far from complete.

The experts now intend to publish the results of their research in a major scientific journal.

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  • Guadeloupe

  • study

  • Science

  • Research

  • West Indies

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