This episode is sponsored by Squarespace.

Go to Squarespace.com/microcosmos to save 10%  off your first purchase of a website or domain Look, we try to think about our vocabulary  here on Journey to the Microcosmos. And we know that it’s bad form to return  to the same word over and over again.

But whenever we write about amoeba, we  will probably say the word “blob” a lot. We can’t really help that, there’s just no better pairing  of the English language with the microcosmos. And today?

Well, today will be twice the blob, because  the amoeba we’re looking at is the usual blob… encased in a somewhat unfamiliar blob. We’ve actually seen these amoeba before  on our journey through the microcosmos,   but they looked really different then. They were striking, but the colors  and shape were a little more muddied   compared to the sharp detail we saw  in the beginning of this episode.

Looking at this, you might feel  like this footage looks like the   work of a microscopist early in his learning. And you would be correct. These were one of the first organisms that  James found when he started his own journey.

At the time, he didn’t even know what he  was looking at, just that it was incredible. It’s been years since this sighting,   but James hadn’t been able to  find these purple amoeba again. And that was disappointing because not only  had his skills as a microscopist improved,   but his tools had as well.

When he got the microscope he uses  regularly now, he just really wanted   to find the purple amoeba again to see what  he would be able to observe this time around. We’re watching the purple amoeba  through that microscope now,   so obviously, James has found it again. But it took years.

He looked everywhere, even taking in  moss samples from all over Europe. But again and again, they failed  to turn up the purple amoeba. So where did James finally find them?

Outside of his own home, of course. They were living in a patch of moss that was  watered by the runoff from his building’s gutter. We don’t know if there’s a name  for those times when you’ve spent   years hunting a microbe, only to  find it right outside your door.

But maybe we should call it “James’ Law.” The name of this microbe is Amphizonella violacea,   and it was first described in  1866 by a scientist named Greef. But while it’s been observed since then, it  doesn’t seem to have sparked much science,   aside from a 2006 paper that discusses   the organism with enough details to  help us better understand its life. But otherwise, it’s kind of a mystery.

For example, the color. We can see the purple pigments streaming  around the cytoplasm of the amoeba. But we don’t know what  those pigments actually are.

One theory is that they’re a  pigment called gloeocapsin,   and that they’re actually the product of  cyanobacteria that the amoeba likes to eat. But we don’t know if that’s actually the  story behind how the amoeba turned purple. Interestingly, scientists have also found  this amoeba without the purple pigments.

And in those cases, the amoeba has  been more of a yellowish color,   which might explain some of  the yellow spots we see here. If we look more closely at the surface, we  can see the oval-shaped nucleus toward the center   of the screen, along with vacuoles that make the  amoeba’s surface look kind of like a purple moon. But the thing we’re still most  intrigued by is that weird,   mucus-y, jelly-like layer around the  amoeba that you can see here.

It’s like if a microbe could have an  aura, that’s what it would look like. Ah, maybe. And in that layer, you can sometimes  find plenty of rod-like bacteria.

With the amoeba out of focus, you  can really see those bacteria here,   decorating the mucus structure like  sprinkles on a very weird, and yes, blobby cupcake. Given all that we have said  about that gelatine layer,   your eyes might be trying to find it here,  on this smaller, younger Amphizonella. Don’t worry though, your vision  hasn’t suddenly failed you.

These younger Amphizonellas just  don’t have that mucus layer. There are times where the Amphizonella loses  both its color and its outer mucus layer,   though it’s for a good reason. When conditions around it aren’t good,   Amphizonellas turn to a beloved  strategy in the microcosmos: they form cysts.

Fortunately but also, a little unfortunately our   amoebas seem to be quite content, so  we can’t see those cysts right now. But in the process of preserving itself,  the color shifts from purple to brown,   and the mucus layer ends up  spreading out over the surface. When the amoeba decides to leave its cyst, it  will have to create that layer again from scratch.

But the exact process of making  that structure and the role it   serves for the amoeba are still poorly understood. This information is all coming  from that one 2006 paper,   whose samples came from mosses that had been  collected from roofs and walls around Germany. It’s an origin that shares a kinship with our  own amoeba, which likely descended through the   gutter from James’ rooftop, and into a  patch of moss for him to collect from.

That parallel, is kind of endearing. After all, this is an organism  that doesn’t have the same wealth   of literature about it that some of  the other microbes we discuss have. We were able to learn enough  to describe what we’re seeing,   but not enough to sketch out  more of the contours of its life.

Yet we can see the story of our  amoeba through someone else’s eyes,   and experience the same details through  observations they made almost 20 years ago. And we hope that now that we’ve  found James’ purple amoeba again,   perhaps someone else will see a parallel to  what they find under their own microscope,   illuminating not just the organism,  but also the mysteries of its life. Thank you for coming on this journey with us as  we explore the unseen world that surrounds us.

And thank you to Squarespace  for sponsoring this episode. Squarespace offers an incredible online  platform from which to create your website. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or  looking to expand your current venture,   Squarespace provides all the  necessary tools to help you thrive.

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Start building your online bakery today by  signing up for a free trial at Squarespace.com. And when you're ready to launch, don't forget  to visit squarespace.com/microcosmos to   enjoy a 10% discount on your first  purchase of a website or domain. Experience the power of Squarespace and watch  your bakery business rise to new heights.

The people on the screen right now  are our Patreon patrons who allow us   to continue to bring you weird organisms  that are very rarely seen by human eyes   and have been described not very  often, and are not easy to find,   but sometimes suddenly become extremely easy to  find because they were on the roof the whole time. Thank you so much. If you want to join them, you can  go to Patreon.com/JourneytoMicro.

If you want to see more   from our Master of Microscopes, James Weiss,  you can check out Jam and Germs on Instagram. And if you want to see more from us, there's  probably a subscribe button somewhere nearby.