iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

One species in our new paper is named after Joe Purdon, an Ontario farmer who nurtured the woodland fen now known as the Purdon Conservation Area. He focused on the Showy Lady’s Slipper orchid, but conserved a whole ecosystem, including his new namesake: Galeripora purdoni. #orchids #peatlands

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

In Montreal to launch my new collection of poems. It has an amoeba on the cover! vehiculepress.com/shop/we-drov... Great to reconnect with old poetry friends, and meet some new ones.

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

As if it weren't strange enough, this species also has a deep purple shell. I don't think anybody knows why.

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

Weird word of the day: "kleptosquamy." The testate amoeba Awerintzewia cyclostoma steals scales from other amoeboid organisms to build its own shell. This one has robbed Quadrulella, Netzelia, various euglyphids, and even an Acanthocystis. Kleptosquamy! #amoebae #ProtistsOnSky #biology #nature

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

The amoeba Difflugia bacillifera builds its shell from things that contain silica, and it is not particular about the source. These ones have incorporated whole shells from another testate amoeba (Euglypha), along with diatoms, algal cysts and chunks of rock. #Amoebae #ProtistsOnSky #peatlands

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

I broke some shells of Galeripora artocrea, to look at their algal hostages...and accidentally created Pac-Man amoebae. #amoebae #peatlands #ProtistsOnSky

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

Amoebae in the family Arcellidae make their shells from secreted vesicles of organic material that become hexagonal when pressed together. When a shell is broken, we can see inside the stiff-walled "areoles" that give it strength and durability. #ProtistsOnSky #Amoebae #peatlands

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Last day in the field...time to wind down, pack up, put my stuff away. Of course, the sneaky shelled amoeba I've been chasing all week SUDDENLY decides to start blooming like crazy. #ProtistsOnSky #amoebae

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Yup, Difflugia leidyi...named for Joseph Leidy, who found a single specimen of the morphotype, which he didn't give a name. He was careful, that way, reluctant to create new taxa. :)

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

But why does an amoeba need horns on its shell? They're quite carefully made, with flat plates neatly glued around them (possibly scales from another organism). The spheres around the mouth are siliceous resting cysts of chrysophyte algae. #ProtistsonSky #MEvoSky #Amoebae #Peatlands

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Ugh. When know-it-all "large language model" AI starts pontificating on things it has read about but can't actually see, the results can be ludicrous. See the attached chatGPT fail, from a reddit thread.

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

The glue is secreted in vesicles, generated in the Golgi apparatus and deposed as these discrete blobs...forming a matrix which varies in appearance from one species to the next. In some, the solidified matrix is quite fancy (see the attached pic of cement in Lesquereusia spiralis).

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

Many amoebae incorporate diatoms in their shells, but Cylindrifflugia bacillariarum is the master. Third and fourth pics are close views of the glue that holds it all together. #ProtistsonSky #Amoebae #Peatlands

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

An amoeba with teeth. When building its shell, Netzelia corona selects sharp grains of quartz and positions them around its aperture with the tips pointing inward. I took a few closeups, yesterday. #ProtistsonSky #amoebae #peatlands #MEvoSky

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Recently, we described a "new" species of amoeba. It's just been found it again, 700 km away. I suspect it's common in eastern N.A., but not noticed until it had a name. One reason to do taxonomy: describing a thing makes it visible! www.inaturalist.org/observations... #taxonomy #systematics

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Some specimens of a shelled amoeba called Heleopera sphagni, from a northern fen. The shell is assembled from jagged siliceous plates, but where did they come from? Stolen from a prey organism, or generated by the amoeba itself? I have no idea! #protistsonsky #amoebae #peatlands

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

His "slipper animalcules" really do look like slippers. 😆

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Avert your eyes if you have "trypophobia"! Here are some close views of the beautiful organic "glue" the amoeba Difflugia microclaviformis uses to cement together bits of quartz and diatoms, to build its shell. #ProtistsonSky #amoebae #peatlands #NatureisLit

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

A shelled amoeba we recently described, Arcella prismatica. These ones were collected from Mer Bleue Bog, in Ottawa. So far, it's only been found there and in a subarctic mire in Chisasibi, James Bay. #ProtistsOnSky #TestateAmoebae #peatland #MerBleueBog #Ottawa

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Work with microbes? Consider the risks!

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

A perfect little thing, crafted by a cunning amoeboid. This shell was collected in a calcareous fen near Winnipeg, Canada. It's the handiwork (pseudopodiwork?) of the cercozoan amoeba Scutiglypha scutigera (=Euglypha scutigera). #ProtistsOnSky #TestateAmoebae #peatland

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

Meet Arcella prismatica, a new species of shelled amoeba from peatlands in suburban Ottawa and James Bay. doi.org/10.22621/cfn... #ProtistsOnSky #Protists #Amoebae

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

The shelled amoeba Zivkovicia compressa, divided internally by a central pillar and a thin-walled "diaphragm" with two round openings. Maybe for defense against parasitic rotifers and other micro-villains? Last pic shows its rather fancy organic cement. #ProtistsOnSky #Protists #Amoebae

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

A shell within a shell. The arcellinid amoeba Cyclopyxis pirini builds its test out of found materials. This one incorporated a rhizarian shelled amoeba from the other side of the eukaryote tree, Scutiglypha crenulata (=Euglypha acanthophora?). #ProtistsOnSky #Protists #Amoebae

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

So, here's an amoeba that makes its shell out self-secreted siliceous "noodles". The organic glue that holds them together is laid down as a meshwork of dainty rosettes, each about 750 nanometers across. Lesquereusia spiralis: a commonplace marvel. #ProtistsOnSky #biomineralization

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Usually, I don't pay much attention to diatoms and chrysophytes, but when an amoeba glues a bunch of them together to make its shell, suddenly I can't stop staring. Here are two shells of Difflugia globulosa, collected in Chisasibi, on the coast of James Bay. #ProtistsOnSky

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Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Zooming in on *Arcella spectabilis*, a shelled amoebozoan from Ottawa's Mer Bleue bog. #protistsonsky

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