Comparative sizes of bacteria and ciliate

[DonSchaeffer]

20200924-161244-372.jpg (240.97 KiB) Viewed 2552 times

20200924-160309-892.jpg (166.76 KiB) Viewed 2552 times

Can this be accurate? Long bacteria is about 1/3 the length of this average ciliate.

[wporter]

Bacteria and ciliates both come in a wide-range of sizes. Though the relative sizes in your example may hold up more often than not, some bacteria are larger than some ciliates. Look up the bacteria Thiomargarita namibiensis, which you can see with the naked eye (up to 750 um diameter)!

[janvangastel]

I observed spirochaetes some time ago. They can be as large as 500 microns (the ones I saw were 3-5 microns) . It is also possible that the bacteriae in your video are actually a chain of smaller bacteriae.

[Bruce Taylor]

Bacteria can get pretty big: https://largest.org/animals/bacteria/

[apochronaut]

Thats nothin' . I saw some in a Japanese movie once that were way bigger than those .

[DonSchaeffer]

Is there any kind of real difference between Cyanobacteria and the smaller ones?