Bodo is a microscopic, biflagellated, kidney-shaped, single celled organism with the largest cells being 8 μm in length and 5 μm wide. Some of the smaller organisms can be as little as 3 μm in length and 2 μm wide. The organisms are transparent, but due to their uptake of photosynthetic bacteria the often resemble a green grape.
Bodo includes free-living organisms with the ability to also attach themselves to a substrate using the tip of their longer flagellum. The normal function of this flagellum is locomotion, but the attachment occurs to allow feeding currents to be created. During feeding, the shorter of the two flagella, which usually has
mastigonemes attached, is used in a sweeping motion to move bacteria towards the circumbuccal lappets, which lie just below the cell membrane. The circumbuccal lappets then coil around the membrane to ingest the bacteria into the buccal cavity where they can then be transported to the cytopharynx. At the cytopharynx, the bacteria are packaged into food vacuoles which allows for digestion and storage. Within the cell,
Bodo saltans also contains a contractile vacuole, a kinetoplast, a flagellar pocket, a looped mitochondria, and a nucleus. Near the kinetoplast, eight microtubules are present which are responsible for supporting the cytopharynx. These microtubules are thought to be involved in ingestion as discussed by Mitchell et al. in 1988, however it remains unconfirmed if they play an active role. The looped mitochondria takes up a large amount of the internal volume of the cell and contain the kinetoplast, a large network of circular DNA. == Genetics ==