The size of bacteria at a glance

These are bacteria

When you hear the word bacteria, you might first think of pathogens and germs. But bacteria live everywhere, in every milieu (except in sterilized areas), in every living being, including humans. Many bacteria benefit humans, for example by enabling digestive processes, others live unnoticed in the organism and still others can cause damage to the organism.

• Bacteria are single-celled living things. Along with the eukaryotes and the arachae, they form one of the three domains of life. Bacteria and arachae together form the prokaryotes: In contrast to the eukaryotes, these do not have a cell nuclear membrane.
• Bacteria have a similar structure, but not all species have all of the components. There are those with or without a flagellum, with or without pili (hair-like appendages). The thickness of the cell wall is also different or there is none. Basically, bacteria consist of a membrane-enclosed cytoplasm in which the chromosomes, ribosomes for protein synthesis and other cell organelles are located.
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These sizes occur in bacteria

Bacteria vary in size, but you can usually not see them with the naked eye.

• The size of bacteria is given in micrometers. A micrometer (µm) is a millionth of a meter. Most bacteria are 0.5 to 1 micrometer in diameter and 1 to 5 micrometers in length.


Bacteria - profile

Bacteria can be found almost everywhere - in living organisms, in the soil, in the air, in ...

• But it is also much smaller or greater. Mycoplasmas are particularly small. Some of them have a diameter of just 0.3 micrometers. In contrast, blue-green algae have a diameter of up to 8 micrometers.
• A giant among bacteria is a sulfur bacterium, which can reach a stately diameter of up to 700 micrometers - so you can actually see it with the naked eye!