You don’t need a microscope to see the biggest bacteria ever found

A photo by Pierre Yves Pascal shows mangroves in the Guadeloupe archipelago of the Caribbean, where scientists have discovered a species of bacteria that grows to the size and shape of a human eyelash. The bacterial cells, named Thiomargarita magnifica are so large they are easily visible to the naked eye, challenging ideas about how large microbes can get. (Photo: Pierre Yves Pascal/ The New York Times)

NEW YORK: In a Caribbean mangrove forest, scientists have discovered a species of bacteria that grows to the size and shape of a human eyelash. These cells are the largest bacteria ever observed, thousands of times bigger than more familiar bacteria such as Escherichia coli.

 “It would be like meeting another human the size of Mount Everest,” said Jean-Marie Volland, a microbiologist at the Joint Genome Institute in Berkeley, California.