Weird Tiny Microbes -w- Tiny Genomes

Tiny free living microbes are found in acidic mine drainage, & co-existing with them are other larger microbes can can grow spikes to stab them with.

Weird, Ultra-Small Microbes Turn Up in Acidic Mine Drainage

ScienceDaily (May 6, 2010) — In the depths of a former copper mine in Northern California dwell what may be the
smallest, most stripped-down
forms of life ever discovered.
. . .
Archaea -- are smaller than other known microorganisms, rivaled in size only by a microbe that can survive solely as a parasite attached to the outside of other cells. Their genomes, . . . are among the smallest ever reported.
. . .
"Other cells in the mine have what looks like a needle that sometimes pokes right into the cells," . . . These cellular extensions are only present when this interaction between the microbes is seen,

www.sciencedaily.com...

The spectrum of ['identified'] life expands further.
And we also find articulated predation there.

You quote the article somewhat wrongly - Archaea aren't nescessarily in general the ones with the smallest genomes. They are actually closer to eukaryotes than prokaryotes are.

Originally posted by Thain Esh Kelch
You quote the article somewhat wrongly - Archaea aren't nescessarily in general the ones with the smallest genomes. They are actually closer to eukaryotes than prokaryotes are.

Prokaryotes (pro karyon - before nucleus) = Archaea and Bacteria
Eukaryotes (eu karyon - true/good nucleus) = Fungi, Plants, Animals and Protists (Amoebozoa, Chromalveolata, Rhizaria & Excavata)

Archaea are closer to Eukaryotes than Bacteria. The closest known bacteria to Archaea and Eukaryotes are Gram-positive bacteria. Some even claim Archaea and Eukaryotes evolved from them. Scientific community however is not convinced..


..quoting the article here:

The team reconstructed the genomes of three distinct lineages of ARMAN and found them to be tiny -- a mere 1 million base pairs, in contrast to hundreds of billions in humans

Rubbish. Human genome is about 3 billion bp, not 100s of billions bps in size.

[edit on 8-5-2010 by rhinoceros]