When I imagine life on Earth, I think of grand images: springboks bouncing across the African savanna, penguins waddling in the snow, dolphins leaping into the air, redwood trees soaring above the forest. But scientists are exploring a profusion of creatures with equally fascinating behavior that aren’t seen in David Attenborough–style documentaries. In fact, our eyes can’t see them at all.
Minuscule life-forms known as protists have been known for centuries. But powerful microscopes, advances in genetic and computational technologies, and old-fashioned fieldwork are now revealing extensive diversity among these single-celled life-forms. Many are bizarre enough to star in a science fiction series.