Platyproteum noduliferae is a marine alveolate, discovered in the intestinal tract of the host Phascolosoma noduliferum (a peanut worm🥜🪱 ) in the western coast of Hok kaido, Japan by Yokouchi et al #Midweekmicrobe.📷 Yokouchi et al 2022

Has it lost its mind? Can it see or is it blind? Don’t worry — we’re not judging anyone. We’re just amazed by the protagonist of this week’s #MidweekMicrobe. Make some noise for a true Ironman: the euglenozoan Euglena mutabilis! 🤘 🦠 . 📷 Gerd Guenther

Sporocarps consist of one to a few spores atop a noncellular stalk. Tice et al 2023 recently found that sporocarpic fruiting is more prevalent in Amoebozoa than previously known. #MidweekMicrobe

They hypothesize that the widespread distribution of sporocarpic fruiting within the group is most likely due to its retention from the last common ancestor of Amoebozoa in some taxa and loss in many others. #MidweekMicrobe

Microglomus paxillus is a Protosteloid amoebae, which are a paraphyletic assemblage of amoeboid protists with Amoebozoa. They can facultatively form a dispersal structure known as a sporocarp (fruiting body) from a single amoeboid cell #MidweekMicrobe

This past Monday was World Health Day —which often makes us think of big threats: pandemics, heart disease, climate change. But what about a microscopic protist that accidentally eats the human brain? Meet 𝘕𝘢𝘦𝘨𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢 𝘧𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘪 🧵 👇 #MidweekMicrobe .📷 CDC

Feliç #SantJordi! In Catalunya, today we celebrate love, literature and dragons, exchanging books and roses🐉 🌹 📖 . Honoring the dragon of the legend of Sant Jordi, today’s #Midweekmicrobe is Dracomyxa pallida, a giant ameboid freshwater foraminifer.📷 Wylezich et al. 2014

Eleutheroschizon duboscqi is a marine protococcidian that parasites the polychaete Scoloplos arminger🪱 . It grows epicellularly, enclosed in a two-membrane parasitophorous sac derived from the host cell, that ends in a protein-rich tail #Midweekmicrobe.📷 Valigurová et al. 2015

Hey you, hurry up! You're just in time for a trip to the Late Cretaceous🌍 🦖 .Sea levels are high and dinosaurs rule the Earth… but we’re here for a different kind of dino. This #MidweekMicrobe, meet the fossil dinoflagellate Desmocysta hadra!🦠 ⛏️

What a week, huh? For those who missed it, the Iberian Peninsula experienced a power outage this Monday that lasted 12 hours!.Luckily for us, this #MidweekMicrobe brings in an expert in alternative energy generation: the foraminifera Hauerina diversa🌿 ☀️ . 📷 François Le Coze

Many of you may be celebrating Easter—if so, happy Easter! 🐣🐰 . For today’s #MidweekMicrobe, we’ll go egg hunting with a model organism in biomedicine—a well-known star behind two Nobel-winning discoveries—the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila!. 📷 Felix Mikus

That’s all for our acid-loving protist of the week. It truly exemplifies everything heavy metal is about: the power of friendship (or in other words, holobionts). Gather with us for the next #MidweekMicrobe, just like microbes in biofilms! lml 🦠 🍄 🧫.

For the latest on these unique-looking symbionts and other related clades, please see Noda et al 2023 ( #MidweekMicrobe.

For more information on Microglomus paxillus, see Tice et al 2023 ( from the Brown Lab: @socialprotist #MidweekMicrobe.

You can check out the article that inspired this thread at Have a happy #MidweekMicrobe Wednesday!.

But don’t worry too much! Infection is extremely rare—only a few cases per year worldwide, usually from untreated warm freshwater entering the nose. You can’t get it from drinking water, and most people exposed never get sick. #MidweekMicrobe.

That's it for this #MidweekMicrobe! We got somewhat dizzy understanding the Tetrahymena thermophila life cycle, but we managed to get our treasure: another piece of amazing protist diversity to share with you!. Check us out next week for more egg-ceptional microbes! 🧫🥚✨.

That’s all for this week’s #MidweekMicrobe! We hope you enjoyed learning about Hauerina diversa and the curious world of kleptoplasty. We don't officially endorse plastid theft—but given Monday’s outage, a little algal endosymbiosis might’ve been nice.

Time to go back to 2025!⏰ Next time you think about the Cretaceous, don’t just picture T. rex: there were dinoflagellates too! Maybe not as big, but surely just as amazing!🦠 🦖 . See you on the next #MidweekMicrobe!.

We are glad to announce that #MidweekMicrobe is back! Today we are celebrating the International Children's Book Day coinciding with Hans Christian Andersen's birthday. A creative mind, Hans published the tale The Drop of Water in 1847, available at