THE world's largest known bacterium has been found in the tropical mangroves of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. It is about a centimetre long, with a structural complexity not seen before in such single-celled life forms. Most bacteria are around 2 micrometres in length, or 0.0002 centimetres. Their size is limited by the fact that the energy-carrying molecules they use to power themselves, known as ATP, are produced using enzymes embedded in the cell membrane. This means bacteria need to have a suitable surface-area-to-volume ratio to function.
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