The Microscopic Insect Smaller Than a Single Cell

Turns out fairies DO exist—on a microscopic level. Well, sort of...meet the fairyfly: the smallest insect on Earth! Learn all about this tiny creature in a new episode of SciShow, hosted by Hank Green!

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[happymealpotion]

"Sir, we've thrown out every possible body part to be as small as possible. We can't throw out anymo-"

"Ditch the nuclei."

"But sir, I-"

"DITCH. THE. NUCLEI."

[Kitty_Cosmic]

I just imagine the people who discovered these was looking at plant / animal cells and one of these just came flying past.

[fjolliff]

The April Fools joke is that we were waiting for it the whole time. April Fools! There is no joke.

[abhisheksoni]

Genie: you got one wish.
Human: I .. want a million ..*mosquito bites human*

Human: you know what? Make annoying little insects for insects.

Genie: say no more

[BesugoTheFirst]

Scientist: “It would seem they have no nuclei.”
Fairy Fly: “Turns out, you don’t need any. Totally overrated!”

[Xenunnaki]

The egg laying thing actually reminds me of Changelings, in which fairies steal infants and replace them with sick or dying fairies. This serves as a historical explanation for unexpected deaths of children, seems today it explains the unexpected deaths of insect eggs

[blackpurple]

The smaller you go, the more Alien everything feels

[matheussanthiago]

the titles of sci-show are the definition of "I don't need to sleep, I need answers "

[dannyhussain]

What I find most fascinating is the potential in biomimicry. At least when looking for solutions to problems, the fairyfly has so many unique and peculiar solutions I believe looking at nature may help guide us in finding our solutions

[Rubrickety]

2022: Scientists discover a species of fairyfly smaller than its _own_ cells; universe collapses.

[caspian]

Okay actually it's so freaking cool that farmers use fairies to help their crops. This is some Stardew Valley level stuff.

[valerieerwin]

I've seen fairy flies before! The ones I saw looked like down feathers, but I noticed they weren't feathers when I saw them move on their own. When I looked them up I saw they were fairy flies! There were hundreds of them at the home I grew up in, and it always seemed magical when I would see a lot of them floating in the air like a light snow flurry in the summer ^•^

[nealwoods]

Can you imagine looking at cell samples under a microscope and suddenly a fly crawls into view.

You'd be all like "Oh no my sample is contaminated.... wait what?"

[owensthethird]

When that fairyfly decided not to eat because it would die soon anyway, I felt that.

[Zoalde]

"They just overlooked them. Because they've been laying their eggs inside other insects' eggs" that line sent me lmao

[danielrusso]

I’m convinced that SciShow started the myth about fairy flies existing in 1901 just so he can pull an epic April Fools prank 120 years later

[thethage]

They always skip over the real questions we have like, “how TF did we discover these things?”

[olegoleg]

Damn. This was surprisingly well made! Often people describe useless things in their documentaries when it can be summarized easily or where the info is just straight out not needed, but everything here was short, sweet and still enough to make me understand everything. Good job!

[jbark]

Yeah I'll just forgo a heart, who needs it?

-Fairy flies, probably

[cuckoophendula]

While they're the smallest insects, would they also be the smallest arthropods? Looking this up now to compare them to the size of a dust mite.
EDIT: WHOA! It's neither an insect or an arachnid (i.e. dust mites). There's a crustacean that's less than 0.1mm long called Stygotantulus stocki