Thiomargarita magnifica – A giant bacteria in a microscopic world
By Sneha Das, C2ST Intern, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
You may remember bacteria as teeny-tiny organisms seen under a microscope from biology lessons in school. In this blog, however, I will introduce you to a giant bacteria visible to the naked eye. Thiomargarita magnifica, the world’s largest bacteria, is about a centimeter long – roughly the length of a human eyelash. Its species name “magnifica” is inspired by the Latin word ‘magnus’ meaning big, and the French word ‘magnifique’ meaning gorgeous.
T. magnifica was first discovered in the Caribbean mangroves of Guadeloupe in 2009. It looked like a bunch of small threads floating on leaf debris – each thread too long to qualify as a single bacterial cell. After years of careful examination, scientists finally reported the discovery of this bacterial titan in June 2022. Jean-Marie Volland, a scientist who studied T. magnifica, describes it as 5,000 times bigger than an average bacteria which, to put it in perspective, would be like a human encountering another human as tall as Mount Everest.
