Dr. Ben Larson

And then this small subset of the population makes this choice to grow dramatically in size, rescale the cell structure and adopt these different behaviors and become cannibalistic.

So instead of filter feeding on bacteria, they rectorially pounce on their conspecifics and devour them and eat them.

And so there may be some competition for resource involved.

We don't really know exactly what's driving the transition.

Yeah.

So, you know, the cell is about, the cannibals are three times as long as the normal filter feeding cells.

And cell volume, we haven't carefully characterized this, but, you know, up to 10 times the volume of the normal cells.

So they get a lot bigger.

I mean, it's very, very clear under the microscope if you look at these things.

Yeah, you can absolutely see this under the microscope.

So what you see is mostly these normal sized cells and then these much, much larger cells next to them that are, they're densely packed with prey, with protein, you know, the body parts of the cells they've eaten and they run around like crazy.

I think they will probably eat any big thing they can find to fit in their mouth.

So they almost never stop moving except after they've caught a prey item, then they'll stand still for a little while and ingest it.

They're very clear under the scope.

Yeah.

Sure.

They're sisters and cousins.

We don't know.

So this is something that we are actively trying to figure out.

It genuinely is a mystery because as far as we can tell, it seems to be this...