Bacteria vs Archaea

Archaea vs. Bacteria

Michael Ali

Grantham University

Organisms are important to our existence as humans and all other living things evolved from them. Organisms can be classified into two categories: eukaryote and prokaryotes. Prokaryotes microorganisms can be further classified into three domains: eukarya, bacteria and archaea. This can become a bit confusing as these two are similar in looks and can often be confused based on look alone, though these are different from each other in many ways.

Archaea have generally the same shape, size, and appearance as bacteria. Like bacteria, archaea multiply by binary fission and move primarily by means of flagella. These morphological similarities can make it difficult to visually tell a bacterium and archaea apart. Additionally, archaea are more phylogentically similar to eukarya than bacteria is to either of them. Biomedia Report says, “Archaea is similar to bacteria in shape and size; this is where the confusion stems from, however some archaea have very unusual shapes, such as the Haloquadratum walsbyi organisms have flat and square-shaped cells. Archaea are also the oldest organisms that have been discovered. They range in from 0.1 micrometers (μm) to over 15 μm in diameter and occur in various shapes including spheres, rods, spirals, plates, lobed cells, needle-like filaments and rectangular rods. Though archaea looks similar to bacteria, it has genes and metabolic pathways that are similar to eukaryotes, including having three RNA polymerases” (2013, March 7).

Unlike bacteria, archaea cells walls do not contain peptidoglycan. Archaea have different membrane lipid bonding compared to bacteria. Like bacteria, Archaea have 70’s ribosomes but they have a different shape. Archaea have more complex RNA polymerases than bacteria. Differences says, “Archaea and bacteria are both single-celled microorganisms known as...