The typical Difflugia shell, for example, is shaped like a vase,
and has a remarkable symmetry… We just don’t know how this single-celled organism builds its shell.”
The creatures in the illustration are Difflugia pyriformis, a common, but as is so often the case, rather extraordinary, microbe. Difflugia are members of a genus of amoeba or protozoa, single-celled organisms; pyriformis means pear-shaped (as in "things have gone pyriform").
Now, to describe the shell of Difflugia pyriformis as being constructed from grains of sand is not quite accurate - the creature itself is only as large as a single grain of fine sand, and so its construction materials are finer, strictly, than sand.
https://throughthesandglass.typepad.com/through_the_sandglass/2010/06/life-and-art-sand-and-glass-the-wonders-of-difflugia.html
and has a remarkable symmetry… We just don’t know how this single-celled organism builds its shell.”
The creatures in the illustration are Difflugia pyriformis, a common, but as is so often the case, rather extraordinary, microbe. Difflugia are members of a genus of amoeba or protozoa, single-celled organisms; pyriformis means pear-shaped (as in "things have gone pyriform").
Now, to describe the shell of Difflugia pyriformis as being constructed from grains of sand is not quite accurate - the creature itself is only as large as a single grain of fine sand, and so its construction materials are finer, strictly, than sand.
https://throughthesandglass.typepad.com/through_the_sandglass/2010/06/life-and-art-sand-and-glass-the-wonders-of-difflugia.html
