Is The Fastest Thing in the Ocean a Bacteria?

When some insufferable saltwater-fishing know-it-all tries to tell you bonefish, or permit, or tuna (or whatever) are the "fastest things that swim," you simply smile and then make it clear you’re the insufferable saltwater fishing know-it-all (sorta).

The correct speed champ? Bacteria. Yup, our single-celled friends.

 
haloplanktis (we think).

From the Blogfish blog:

Who knew ocean bacteria are faster than a cheetah? And even more amazing, who knew that this darting behavior is globally important, possibly impacting climate change? How fast are they exactly?

OK, so how fast are they really? The single rotating flagellum of P. haloplanktis propels it forward at the amazing speed of 500 body lengths per second, way faster than a cheetah’s mere 30 body lengths per second.

That’s relatively blazing fast for the ocean bacteria. Of course, with a body length of 2 microns (0.000002 meters), this relative speed has the microscopic bacteria swimming at the amazing pace of about 10 feet per hour. Wow. That’s just a bit faster than a slug, but slower than a snail.

Clearly, the fly fishing industry are a bunch of loungers; they’ve completely overlooked the lucrative bacteria fly fishing market, where anglers buy the latest in micro-equipment (perhaps we’ve actually found a use for all those Sage toys ultra-light fly rods) and go in hunt of relatively abundant… bacteria.

"Whoa, Roy — that’ll go 2.75, 3 microns at least."

"Yep — she’s a beauty."

I’m already hard at work on this micro-sport’s defining literary work: "Selective haloplanktis"

See you in the oceans, Tom Chandler.