(6/6) Thus, I’ve decided to leave my amature theory here. Would be really curious to hear what Morehouse lab thinks about the matter. Only found @abhinavajagan.bsky.social here. Thanks for the attention. Retreating back to single-cell territory.

(5/6) The one with the fly is recently described by Jürgen C. Otto and David E. Hill in big detail with stunning pictures: peckhamia.com/peckhamia/PE..., but I didn’t find any discussion of fly-cue. Otto never answered my e-mail, but probably he is busy searching for more amazing spiders 🙂

(4/6) Can it be “look like something important (prey) to grab girl’s attention”? I found no examples except these water mites, which vibrate legs, imitating the prey. Proctor, 1991 10.1016/S0003-3472(05)80242-8

(3/6) It turns out their coloration isn't just a random, but sexually-selected trait, which sometimes exploits visual insect-resembling cues. For example heads of preying mantises or wasps - look like something important (predator) to grab girl’s attention. Harris et al. 2025 10.1093/beheco/araf074

(2/6) #Maratus peacock jumping #spiders are known for their spectacular courtship display, which seems to also grab a lot of attention among humans, not only spider-girls, which shows that we and spiders share aesthetic views, but this other story #sexselection

(1/6) Not protists, but this is Sunday, so why not 🙃 In short: I saw the fly “picture” on this 🦚🕷️ #peacockspider #jumpingspider opistosoma and can’t unsee it. Why it might be interesting (not just my pareidolia 🤪) - below.

11/11 Last, but not least, we think Meringo is beautiful, elegant and mind-blowingly aesthetic creature and it is amazing to bring this perfection to other people’s attention. Looking forward to seeing more and @amandaadamjasson.bsky.social is preparing more pictures and insights. Stay tuned!

10/11 Such recent establishments of plastids are very rare and valuable models for understanding how plastids became a part of cells in other lineages, including #plants, which was a game-changer for life on Earth.

9/11 Why should we care? Meringosphaera is important player in oceanic plankton. Here in #metabarcoding study (Obiol et al. 2021 10.1002/lno.11956) by @rmassanam.bsky.social lab, Meringosphaera (as 54/Centrohelida-sp1) rated as top 1 ASV with highest relative read abundance in world ocean surface.🌊

8/11 Studying Meringosphaera is extremely hard: they are very fragile and cannot be cultured. But we managed to learn a lot using indirect methods: CARD-fish and and digital droplet PCR. Look at these gorgeous confocal pictures!

7/11 We can see nice examples of endosymbiotic gene transfers: some genes with plastid function are host-encoded

6/11 Now we see it is even cooler! Look at this perfectly mirroring host and symbiont phylogenies - this strongly indicates that at least in some Meringosphaera lineages plastids are permanent.

5/11 How it is possible the hunter has #plastids? Why would 🐺 become 🌱? Our first idea was #kleptoplastidity - stealing plastids from prey. Plastid genome data showed that Meringosphaera plastids group with uncultured dictyochophytes. (@messorensen.bsky.social et al. 2023 10.1016/j.cub.2023.07.017)

4/11 I find #centrohelids the most exiting #protists ever and feel pain seeing them neglected😢 They are diverse and widespread apex-predators of the microworld 😬 sometimes multicellular and producing a stunning diversity of siliceous elements, of which Meringosphaera “bristles” is only one example.

3/11 We managed to find living cells, obtain sequence data and show that it belongs to centrohelids, “bristles” are siliceous scales and when handled carefully the cells show typical centrohelid axopodia🌞Zlatogursky et al. 2021 10.1111/jeu.12860 What on Earth are centrohelids, I hear you asking…

2/11 Back in 1887 Victor Hensen, pioneer of plankton research 🪼, also known as inventor of plankton net, described a tiny “microscopic plant” with wavy “bristles”, which was later named Meringosphaera mediterranea. For more than a century since it remained uncertain affinities alga 🤷‍♂️

Surprising view on the #TreeOfLife in 2026, preprint by Li & Zhang doi.org/10.64898/202.... "Organism-Environment Topological Interfaces Drive the Origination of Organismal Form". #protistsonsky might respectfully disagree I suppose 😱

Apologies, I see my mistake now: I counted one big one as two

Can anyone help to identify the genome? 😄

Meet Hexatilemonas jangsaensis a new uncultured apusomonad clade by Jeong et al. doi 10.1111/1462-2920.70282. #protistsonsky. Mark the trunk 🐘 (sleeve around base of flagellum) and laterally consumed bacterium in 🟥 .

My new spiritual eukaryote is ciliate in Si helmet swimming towards North pole ⚔️. Definitely an amazing reading from Bolzoni et al. "Magnetoreception in a freshwater ciliate arises from endosymbiosis." 10.1038/s41467-026-70462-8 for #protistsonsky

Maybe Cochliopodium is not such a bad guess, look at the floating form (fig from Kudryavtsev, 2005)

Wow! Radler et al. doi.org/10.1101/2025... These are #asgardarchaea with what? Pseudopodia? Should we call them archaepodia analogously to archaellum? Mindblowing anyway!

Impressive, and I am sure amazing genomics, but it feels as some zoology carelessness. "Microscopic phyla"-??? Have you heard about acanthocephalans? giant thorny-headed worm starts crying 😭 Can anyone clarify which organ systems (!) were reinvented (!!!)? Please correct me if I missed anything.

Promethea = PROvora + MEteora + HEmimastigophora. The new supergroup, unifying previously “orphan” lineages with gene-rich mitogenomes. Position of #telonemids is still uncertain. #protistsonsky tinyurl.com/yk9xkt49

When you are Stentor #ciliate and someone poring 🥛 milk on you 😵 More on teaming up for #multicellariaty and even on social cheating in Shekhar et al. 10.1038/s41567-025-02787-y. Also more psychodelic videos! Nature physics today. #protistsonsky

@amoebadiscovery.bsky.social made an iteresting interview with me about #heliozoa and #centrohelids - I think these organisms are really important, understudied and gorgeous 😍 Also lots other intresting reading and beatiful pictures! #protistsonsky link: tinyurl.com/adiscovery1

I am amazed by visual rhyme of these two subsequent posts in my feed! 😍

Hello #ProtistsOnSky, just by chance is anyone interested to have the culture of this cute Parauronema #ciliate? Don't really know what to do with it and need to clear my collection before changing lab. Grows quite well!