Movie Monster-sized Amoeba From an Icy Hell

Protoazoa are usually about 10-52 microns across, but not the Xenophyophores of the Mariana Trench—the largest individual cells in existence.  These guys reach four inches across, live in large numbers oozing along the ocean floor (six miles deep!) and eat the sediments collecting there, building up the best defense in the world:  huge concentrations of toxic metals.  They ooze along on pseudopodia and slime, just like a 1950’s movie monster.

See?  Reality is weirder than you imagine.  And can imagine.

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