Rippling by Corallococcus coralloides.

(This organism used to be called Chondrococcus coralloides). Rippling, or rhythmic oscillations is a unique and mysterious feature of the family Myxococcaceae of the myxobacteria. It exemplifies the complex social behavior of this group of bacteria. Rippling is a periodic movement of groups of travelling ridges that usually occurs in the colony prior to aggregation. In the first segment one can see the periodicity of the rippling. In the second segment, the ripples can be observed at a higher magnification. Neither the mechanism nor the function of rippling is understood.

For more details, see "rippling".

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