So What Is Microbiology?
The study of living things that are very, very small.
‘Micro’ means small or tiny. ‘Organism’ means living thing. So simply, MICRO-ORGANISMS are just really small living things.
So small we can’t see them on our own. We have to use microscopes, which allow us to look at things really, really closely. 🔬
Micro-organisms live everywhere. In rivers, your garden, your kitchen, your bathroom, and even in and on you!
Click each image to find out more about the different types of micro-organisms below.
Bacteria
Archaea
Viruses
Fungi
Protozoa
Where Microbiology Began
An example of the very first microscopes, similar to what would have been used by van Leeuwenhoek
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723)
The Father of Microbiology
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch Scientist. He began his working life as a draper, making and selling clothes. But he found it hard to see the very thin threads needed, and so developed very early microscopes. These microscopes allowed him to look at very small things close up.
The microscopes were so effective, it soon led to van Leeuwenhoek working within science, using his microscope to examine lice, fleas and bees.
Eventually, he started at looking at all sorts of things- blood, skin, soil, water. And what he found fascinated him, and became the start of MICROBIOLOGY as we know it.
What Antonie van Leeuwenhoek found was a new microscopic world full of what he called ‘animalcules’ (little animals). Tiny living things of all different shapes and sizes, not visible with the naked eye.
Little did he know that these were micro-organisms that we would still be learning about to this day!
Thanks for starting off our microbiology journey, Tony!
An example of the ‘animalcules’ discovered by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
➡️ How Small Are We Talking?
Can you guess which organisms are the smallest and biggest?