ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — She called it cute, the microscopic single-celled organism on her microscope slide. She said she liked its little hairs, and the way it swam beneath her lens. Looking through her microscope, Mya Breitbart found one of the ciliates — this type of single-celled creature — and smiled.
But what could make this ciliate famous is not cute at all.
Beginning in January 2022, divers began to see a species of long-spined sea urchins, known as Diadema antillarum, dying in droves, spanning from the Caribbean to the Florida Keys. Something was infecting them, causing their spines to literally fall off their bodies. But it wasn’t quite clear what it was.
