organisms that some people form a Special Interest^TM over

• fungi
• slime molds
• nudibranches
• plankton

slime molds

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpt9cJrEZ_Y
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkVhLJLG7ug

plankton — fun facts

• Plankton make up some 70 to 90% of the ocean's biomass.
• Phytoplankton are responsible for > 50% of the oxygen in our atmosphere. [map]
• (TODO) They are a very diverse group.
• [NOAA]   [Shaw]

viruses — fun facts

• Viruses are more abundant than any other biological entity, with 10³¹ existing on Earth.
  • That's 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 10 quadrillion-quadrillion.
• The human virome is part of the human microbiome. [2] There are approximately 40 trillion bacteria in the human body, and viruses number 10 times that.
• Although viruses are extremely small, some organisms eat viruses for their nutritional value.
• Viruses are diverse, with there likely being millions of types of viruses. [2] However, only ~16,000 have been described in detail or sequenced.
• Human understanding of viruses is gaining a LOT of speed in ~2025 due to the availability of newer DNA techniques: (see also: ▶viral dark matter   [▶2])
  • Metagenomics
  • High-throughput DNA sequencing
  • Metabarcoding
  • the plummeting cost of gene sequencing