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Scientific American

October 18, 2013

An ink dinoflagellate

Things have been a little tense lately… here, have a dinoflagellate! (kinda looks like a space ship, no?) This ink drawing is based on Protoperidium, a dinoflagellate notable for its ‘pallium feeding‘: upon finding something tasty but awkwardly-shaped, it extrudes a ‘feeding veil’ in the form of a pseudopod-like structure, which then envelops the prey [...]

By Psi Wavefunction

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

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Things have been a little tense lately... here, have a dinoflagellate! (kinda looks like a space ship, no?)

This ink drawing is based on Protoperidium, a dinoflagellate notable for its 'pallium feeding': upon finding something tasty but awkwardly-shaped, it extrudes a 'feeding veil' in the form of a pseudopod-like structure, which then envelops the prey -- whom awkwardness fails to save. Once safely inside this feeding extension, the prey gets dissolved and digested, and eventually only the inedible bits like diatom frustules get spat out. In a way, the dino extrudes its guts outside to devour what cannot fit through its mouth. So much for the poor algae who work so hard to stick together in chains too large to be eaten!

No matter how awkwardly large and cumbersome the mess may be in your life, may this dinoflagellate envelop and digest it away for you!

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About Psi Wavefunction

I first encountered the wonders of the protist realm back in childhood, when a murky droplet of pond scum was revealed by the microscope to entail an alien world in its own right. It took another decade to discover there was a field and a community dedicated to these organisms, and I bade farewell to the study of more familiar big things. As a kid I was also fascinated by tales of exploration of the New World, as well as those of fantasy worlds. I was then sad that the age of surveying new landmasses on earth was over, and that human extraterrestrial adventures are unlikely to happen within our lifetimes. It seemed everything was discovered already. But that could hardly be further from the truth -- all that is necessary to begin one's own Age of Exploration is a new approach or perspective, and a healthy does of imagination. Since reality has conjured far more than the human mind alone ever could, science yields a way to write stories much wilder than fiction. All one needs to access the alien world of microbes around (and inside) them is a shift of scale by simple glass sphere.
I'm currently finishing up my undergraduate degree in Vancouver and in transition career-wise, hopefully to end up in graduate school soon. I was born in Russia (and speak the language) and spent most of my life in US and Canada. In addition to protists, I'm fascinated by evolution, including that of culture and languages, diversity and biology of cells and how they self-organise, linguistics and anthropology, particularly of the less talked-about cultures, sociology of science and plenty of totally random things that snag my attention.
Banner image was kindly post-processed and enhanced by my friend: an accomplished comic artist who goes by Achiru.

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