[Please read this note about future updates - 9 September 2011]
Life is more than just plants and animals. The little things matter too.
Any pond, drain, or reservoir in the city is full of life, microscopic organisms that are too small to see with the naked eye.
Some of them have exotic names, like vampyrellids or centrohelid heliozoans. If you’re used to “normal” life forms, then you’ll find that these unfamiliar creatures look as exotic as their names sound.
But that doesn’t mean that they’re unknowable or impossibly obscure. With some familiarity, you can learn to recognize these protists, also called protozoa and algae. They are eukaryotes like the animals, plants, and fungi, but they represent a myriad other ways of living life at the micro scale.
Explore this guide to the protists of Singapore, illustrated by photomicrographs and videos. See what life-forms lurk in the heart of the city. You may want to read more about how to use the guide, or learn more about what protists are. To contact me, use this online form. New updates are announced on the blog.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. I found your blog only recently. All the best to your postgrad studies. I read Lynn Margulis’s Symbiotic Planet and agree totally when she wrote – “And here, in nonplants and nonanimals, lies the real biodiversity.” Cheers : )