#karyorelictea

"Some of the ciliates we find in the microcosmos have a sort of stoutness to them, like the declarative trumpet shape of the stentor or the oblong of the paramecium. But then you have this little weird fellow, which looks more like a twisty, slithering worm than a unicellular organism. This is a trachelocercid, and no, I do not know if I am pronouncing that entirely correctly. It's a member of a class of ciliates called the Karyorelictea."

Journey to the Microcosmos- The Chaotic Life of Seashore Ciliates

"They're tucked away in the space between the grains of sand, in pockets of water called interstitial water. While for many of us, a day at the beach might sound like a nice, relaxing vacation, things are very different for the microbes who live there. Those little bits of interstitial water are a chaotic habitat. Just imagine your life at that scale, surrounded by sharp pieces of sand that to you probably would look more like giant boulders. Imagine that those rocks aren't just gigantic, they're moving in a constantly shifting landscape of sedimentary rubble, a cutting maze that's always changing as waves crash upon you."

Journey to the Microcosmos- The Chaotic Life of Seashore Ciliates

"You've probably noticed that the trachelocercid, while very worm-like, still has some of its own distinct shapes. If we were asked to compare it to another ciliate, we might look at the lacrymaria olor, with its neck similarly extending and seeking and retracting. Like the lacrymaria, the focus of the karyorelicted's pursuit is probably food. They particularly enjoy a diet of other organisms like bacteria, diatoms, and even rotifers."

Journey to the Microcosmos- The Chaotic Life of Seashore Ciliates

cc: "James, our master of microscopes, hired two PhD students to help him with a very important task: every month, they bring him wet sand from the sea. Yeah, maybe some of us might get a subscription box filled with items related to our favorite hobby. James gets a monthly subscription of sand and not just a little bit of sand here or there. He gets liters and liters of it that he then sifts through to find the microbes living inside."

Journey to the Microcosmos- The Chaotic Life of Seashore Ciliates

Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs

"A lot of the traits we're describing in the karyorelictids are traits shared by other ciliates that live in their own environments, but just refined through generation upon generation of interstitial life. But there is something that's a bit more unusual, their nucleus doesn't divide."

Journey to the Microcosmos- The Chaotic Life of Seashore Ciliates

Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs

"The karyorelictea doesn't just get to focus on hunting. In a world that is always changing, the ability for the karyorelictea to twist and turn their elongated body helps them navigate their uncertain terrain and the narrow corridors that fill it. It also helps that some species can grow as large as 5 mm long. Karyorelictids can also use their cilia to attach themselves to grains of sand, giving themselves something to anchor onto if needed."

Journey to the Microcosmos- The Chaotic Life of Seashore Ciliates

Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs

"We'll show you a few different trachelocercids today, though we can't specify their genera any further without using other experimental and microscopy techniques to see the smaller structures inside them. What they all have in common though is that they come from a place that we have not really visited yet on our journey through the microcosmos. They come from the beach."

Journey to the Microcosmos- The Chaotic Life of Seashore Ciliates

Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs