Here there little cutie (they are the little balls, not the other thing)
Taken from http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2...lling-seafloor
I think that is pretty cool. A single cell that big is amazing. Plus the trail of poop is pretty funny
SYDNEY: Using a research submarine, marine biologists in the Bahamas have discovered large numbers of an unknown, grape-sized, single-celled animal slowly rolling across the sea floor.
"[It's] huge for a single cell. If I had cells that big I'd be six kilometres tall and weigh three trillion kilograms," said Sönke Johnsen, a biologist at Duke University in North Carolina, and the expedition's chief scientist.
Single-celled animals, known as protists, are usually the size of a pin-head or much smaller, but the size of this "sea-grape" isn't the most unusual thing about it.
"We watched the video over and over," said Johnsen. "We argued about it forever… [we thought] these things can't possibly be moving. There are other large protists, but none of them move."
SECTION DELETED TO PREVENT A FIGHT. SEE THE ARTICLE ITSELF IF YOU WANT TO READ IT
Slow roll
The tracks left by them, as they feed on sediment in the Bahamas, are up to 50 cm long, and it's estimated that they roll at a rate of just 2.5 cm a day. See a video slide show of the animals here.
The researchers said that it's possible that the sea grape may be a descendent of the creature that made the tracks that are well known from the fossil record. Or – like the tuatara or the coelacanth – the protist could be a living fossil, that has changed little for as many as 1.8 billion years.
"This description of similar [sea floor tracks] made by the giant single-celled amoeba is very important," commented Jim Gehling, a palaeontologist at the South Australian Museum in Adelaide. "It shows that we can never rely on one piece of evidence to demonstrate the origins of motile animals."
"[It's] huge for a single cell. If I had cells that big I'd be six kilometres tall and weigh three trillion kilograms," said Sönke Johnsen, a biologist at Duke University in North Carolina, and the expedition's chief scientist.
Single-celled animals, known as protists, are usually the size of a pin-head or much smaller, but the size of this "sea-grape" isn't the most unusual thing about it.
"We watched the video over and over," said Johnsen. "We argued about it forever… [we thought] these things can't possibly be moving. There are other large protists, but none of them move."
SECTION DELETED TO PREVENT A FIGHT. SEE THE ARTICLE ITSELF IF YOU WANT TO READ IT
Slow roll
The tracks left by them, as they feed on sediment in the Bahamas, are up to 50 cm long, and it's estimated that they roll at a rate of just 2.5 cm a day. See a video slide show of the animals here.
The researchers said that it's possible that the sea grape may be a descendent of the creature that made the tracks that are well known from the fossil record. Or – like the tuatara or the coelacanth – the protist could be a living fossil, that has changed little for as many as 1.8 billion years.
"This description of similar [sea floor tracks] made by the giant single-celled amoeba is very important," commented Jim Gehling, a palaeontologist at the South Australian Museum in Adelaide. "It shows that we can never rely on one piece of evidence to demonstrate the origins of motile animals."
I think that is pretty cool. A single cell that big is amazing. Plus the trail of poop is pretty funny
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