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A single-celled protist reacts to threats in surprisingly complex ways

A new try of a dismissed 1906 experiment suggests a protist can, in fact, ‘decide’ what to do

Stentor roeseli

Stentor roeseli, a single-celled organism known as a protist, uses its hairlike cilia to feed while attached to floating algae. New research suggests that it's capable of complex evasive behaviors when irritated.

Proyecto Agua/Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

By Jonathan Lambert

- More than 2 years ago

Being single-celled doesn’t necessarily doom a creature to a simple life.