A microbial predator that stalks the waters of the German countryside envelopes its victims and leaves their empty husks behind. The predator — a newfound amoeba dubbed Strigomyxa ruptor — feeds like no other protist, researchers report in the August Ecology and Evolution.
Protozoologists Andreas Suthaus and Sebastian Hess of the University of Cologne in Germany were hunting vampires — microscopic ones, at least. Vampyrellid amoebas eat holes in the cell walls of algae and slurp up the insides (SN: 11/2/15). Looking to understand the protists’ biological diversity, the researchers took water samples from ponds and wetlands near Cologne.
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