Sometimes, the microcosmos can  take a little while to surprise.

You have to be patient, enjoying the familiar  sights as you wait for something new. Like right now, we’re looking at something that’s  quite common on our channel: cyanobacteria.

But it’s setting the stage for things  that get more and more unique for us,   like this maze that’s actually an organism. These samples came to us from  a shore somewhere in Portugal. James, our master of microscopes,  had met some nice people at a party,   and naturally began following  them on Instagram after.

A day or two later, they shared some pictures  from their vacation along a Portuguese shore,   and the thing that stood  out to James were the rocks. They were covered in biofilm, and he just had  to know what could be living inside of them. So he asked his new friends to bring him back some  samples of those biofilms in a bottle of water.

James spent weeks watching those  samples after they arrived. The cyanobacteria we saw at the beginning of   this video were probably the most  abundant organisms in his sample. And that’s hardly surprising.

These photosynthetic prokaryotes  have survived for somewhere around   3.5 billion years, showing up  in all sorts of environments. It feels like they’ve basically  been everywhere forever. And while they are unicellular  organisms, cyanobacteria can   come together to form colonies and  filaments, which are often encased-- like you can see here— in a mucilaginous sheath.

Those sheaths can serve as protection,   keeping the cyanobacteria safe from  UV radiation or from losing water. And in times when the cyanobacteria  do get dried out, the sheath may be   able to help them trap moisture  as they emerge from dessication. And given the prevalence of cyanobacteria,  they sometimes get a front-row seat to   the cuter side of the microcosmos, like  these euplotes in the middle of division.

You can see the cilia fused together  into larger structures called cirri,   as they beat along the side edge of the organism. And eventually they scamper off,  one euplotes having become two. So yes, cyanobacteria, familiar.

And I’m sure our next organism  seems like a familiar sight too. Yes, it’s a tardigrade. And we’ve seen a lot of tardigrades on  our journey through the microcosmos.

But this genus was completely new to James, which  means it’s also completely new to our channel. The genus is called Echiniscoides,  which is a group of marine tardigrades. And what was especially adorable about  these tardigrades to James is that if   you look right under the mouth area, you  can see a bunch of little fuzzy dots.

Those are actually bacteria. It’s like  the tardigrade has a beard of them! It’s tempting to think that maybe the tardigrade  is able to somehow nibble on its bacterial beard,   especially since it’s such a convenient meal  parked right next to the tardigrade’s mouth.

But unfortunately, we weren’t able to  turn up any research that could explain   the possible existence of bacterial  exobionts on this tardigrade genus. So we don’t actually know for sure that   the tardigrade is carrying a to-go  meal of bacteria around its mouth. And perhaps less enchanting— though still quite noticeable— are the tardigrade’s claws.

One species from this genus is known to have  anywhere from 7 to 13 claws on each leg! It really puts the “bear” in “water bear.” Unfortunately, after about a week of receiving  these samples, the tardigrades began to disappear. And the populations began to shift.

In this little world that James was watching,   the abundance of bacteria fed and  fueled the growth of ciliates. But these growing populations may  have also made it harder for other   organisms to survive because they  began consuming all of the oxygen. And as other species began to die off,  James noticed a shift in his samples..

That’s when he noticed…this. It doesn’t look that appealing from this far away. In fact, it looks like someone blew  their nose all over a microscopy slide.

But up close, we can see what is,  to us at least, an unusual amoeba. We don’t know what species it is, we just  know that it’s yellow and filled with nuclei. And its body shifts around with that  familiar shapelessness we know and love.

But James also came across a shape  that was almost alien to him. Like the amoeba, it seemed to  spread over a world of decay. But the way it did so was different.

Whatever organism he was looking  at didn’t have the same movement   and globby quality to it like the amoebas. Instead it seemed like a network  of branches, radiating outward. As James looked at it, he couldn’t  make sense of what he was seeing.

So he turned to a microbiologist  named Dr. Kenneth Dumack for help. And Dr.

Dumack told James that  what was growing on the slide was   an interesting protist called labyrinthulomycetes. When a labyrinthulomycete settles onto a surface,   it can begin forming tubes that  branch out from their cytoplasm. Those branches are anchored to the organism  through an organelle called the bothrosome.

Those tubes serve a few purposes. They help attach the cells to the surface,   and also provide a little  highway for them to travel along. They can also produce enzymes that break down   organic molecules and deliver  them to the cells as food.

There are two groups of labyrinthulomycetes. One group, called labyrinthulids, can be  found on living algae and sea grasses. This sets them apart from thraustochytrids,  which might be deterred by plant antimicrobials.

However, both groups can be found on  dead plants, feasting on the decay. Unfortunately, James found  only one of these networks,   and he was only able to keep  it alive for a couple of hours. For James— someone who regularly ventures  out and gathers his own samples— these ones that he doesn’t collect  are their own special surprise.

When he looks at them, he can learn more  about a habitat far from where he lives,   and watching them under the microscope  is like putting a puzzle together. This puzzle showed him an  increasingly unknown world,   with an environment in flux and where what  survives one week may not survive the next. The pieces rearrange as they tell an old story: the world is always changing, and it  will always bring you something new.

Thank you for coming on this journey with us as  we explore the unseen world that surrounds us. And if you enjoy learning on  YouTube, why not get credit for it? With the Study Hall channel you can start  taking college courses right here on YouTube!

Here’s how it works: Watch the course videos on the Study  Hall channel for free, then sign up for   an online college course led by ASU faculty  for just $25 and apply what you’ve learned. If at the end of the course you’re  happy with your grade pay $400 (which is about a third of  the cost of a college course!) and now you have 3 transferable  college credits on your transcript! Whether you’re trying to learn new skills,  earn college credit, or just prove to yourself   that you can do it, Study Hall can help you  reach your goals without the financial risk!

Pick between common gen-ed college  courses like Modern World History,   Code and Programming, Human Communication,  and more on the Study Hall channel! Check out the link in the description  or go to GoStudyHall.com to learn more. We’d also like to say thank you to  each and every one of our Patrons.

Some of their names are on the screen  right now, and these are the people   that make this channel, and videos like  this possible and we are so so grateful. If you’d like to become one of them, you  can go to patreon.com/journeytomicro. If you’d like to see more from our  Master of Microscopes, James Weiss,   you can check out Jam & Germs on Instagram,   and if you’d like to see more from us, there’s  probably a subscribe button somewhere nearby.