Microbe Zoo

Salt-loving, 2,4-D Degrader


Kingdom: Eubacteria
Scientific Name: Halomonadacaea
Image Courtesy of: Maltseva, Olga
Image Width: 8 microns
Image Technology: SEM


These bacteria degrade 2,4-D, the herbicide found in "Weed be gone" that people spray on their lawns to get rid of dandelions and other weed plants. This bacterium is unusual among 2,4-D degrading bacteria found so far because it can live in high concentrations of salt at high pH.


Rumen Symbionts


Kingdom: Protist, Fungi, Eubacteria
Scientific Name: Entodinium caudatum et al.
Image Courtesy of: Yokoyam, Mel; Cobos, Mario A.
Image Width: 40 microns
Image Technology: SEM


Cattle, like other ruminant animals such as goats, deer, and giraffes, have billions of microbes inside their guts which help them digest their food. These are some of the many types of microbes that live in the rumens (stomachs) of cows. The large microbe is a type of protist. The creature that looks like a tadpole attached to the side of the protist is a fungal spore. The smaller, rod-shaped beasts lining the underside of the protist are bacteria.


Yeast


Kingdom: Fungus
Scientific Name: Saacharomyces cereviceae
Image Courtesy of: Whallon, Joanne
Image Width: 24 microns
Image Technology: Laser Scanning Confocal Microscopy


Yeast are small fungi which are incredibly important in the food and beverage industries. Yeast ferement the sugars in fruits to make wine, the sugars in grains to make beers. When grown in the presence of oxygen, yeast give off the gas carbon dioxide which makes bread rise. Yeast can grow with oxygen, (aerobically) or without oxygen (anaerobically). Because it can grow either aerobically or anaerobically, it is known as a "Faculative Aerobe".


Martin Bacillus


Kingdom: Unknown
Scientific Name: Unknown
Image Courtesy of: N.A.S.A
Image Width: 450 nanometers
Image Technology: SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope)


In August of 1996 NASA scientists reported finding what look like fossils of microbes inside a meteorite (called ALH84001) thought to be from Mars. They believe the 4.5 billion year old rock was once a part of Mars. It was blasted from Mars by a huge meteor impact 16 million years ago. It fell to Earth in Antarctica 13 thousand years ago. A piece of the meteorite was discovered on an ice field in Antarctica by scientists in 1984. Inside of the meteorite, along cracks and fissures within the rock, scientists found mineral structures such as the one shown here.


Star Filant Algae Fluorescing

Kingdom: Protist
Scientific Name: Zygenema
Image Courtesy of: Shirley Owens
Image Width: 45 microns

Image Technology: Laser Scanning Confocal Microscopyme

This is a type of algae that lives in ponds. Algae are protists that have chlorophyll, like plants do, and are thus able to make food for themselves using sunlight via photosynthesis. Many algae, such as this one, grow in long strands of individual cells strung end to end. This image shows several cells in a portion of such a strand. This image does not show the whole algal cells, but instead highlights a part of the internal structure of the algae, their chloroplasts.

This image was created using fluorescence. The algae were originally illuminated with light of a relatively short wavelength, chosen specifically because chlorophyll absorbs light at that wavelength. The chlorophyll re-emits, or fluoresces, the light energy at a longer wavelength. Since the chlorophyll in algae is gathered in its chloroplasts, it is the chloroplasts inside the algal cells that we see in this view.