#loxodes

"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

"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

" There are mysteries both microbial and human to this story, and if Kahl helped us solve some of the former, he left us with more of the latter. Just as we know little about the beginning of his life, we know little about the end of it as well. It's really just that decade of work that seems to have lasted. But oh how it has lasted. Alfred Kahl's texts have gone on to become immensely important to those who study ciliates, filled with drawings that help those like James, our master of microscopes, who are trying to figure out what they see under their microscopes. The tools may have changed, the ways we share information has evolved, but the delight and curiosity--that remains unchanged."

Journey to the Microcosmos- The Schoolteacher Who Discovered 700 Ciliates

"For most ciliates, when the organism divides, the macronucleus divides with it, ensuring that the new daughter cells each have their own macronucleus. This is not the case for the karyorelictids. When they divide, their macronuclei don't. The daughter cells use their micronuclei to make a whole new macronuclei. Karyorelictids are usually observed with multiple macronuclei, which is probably a way to ensure that there's at least some functional nucleus around while the organism is making a new one."

Journey to the Microcosmos- The Chaotic Life of Seashore Ciliates

"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