World's largest bacterium discovered is the size of a human eyelash - CNN

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A newly discovered bacterium that is large enough to be visible to the naked eye, and resembles the shape and size of an eyelash, has been found in Guadeloupe in the Lesser Antilles, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.

Thiomargarita magnifica -- a reference to its exceptional size -- has an average cell length greater than 9,000 micrometers, which is nearly 1 centimeter (0.4 inches) in length.

magnifica can grow up to 2 centimeters long, according to study coauthor Jean-Marie Volland, a marine biologist and scientist at California's Laboratory for Research in Complex Systems, and an affiliate at the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute.

"To understand how gigantic that is for a bacterium, it is the same as if we were to find a human as tall as Mount Everest," he told CNN Wednesday.

More than 625,000 E.

However, despite its size, the bacterium has a "notably pristine" surface, devoid of the bacteria that live on the surface of plants and living animals, according to the study.

magnifica cells in comparison with the other microbes in the bacterial population means that they do not need to worry about being eaten by predators.

A microbial 'black box'

Tanja Woyke, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, thinks that it's likely that the giant bacteria, or related species, could be found in other mangroves around the world.

"It always strikes me how little we know about the microbial world and how much is out there," she told CNN Wednesday, adding that the microbial world "is still a black box." Woyke, who leads the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute's Microbial Genomics Program, is one of the study's senior authors.

"Confirmation bias related to viral size prevented the discovery of giant viruses for more than a century," concluded the study.