Haloquadratum walsbyi is a halophilic archaeon, living in salt lakes all around the world. Known for the distinctive flat, square shape of his cells, his appearance caught human attention around the end of 20th century 1.
Walsbyi owns the largest archeal protein known to date, halomucin Hmu1. Halomucins are key components of Walsbyi’s water-enriched capsule, protecting him against dessication caused by great salt concentrations in the lakes 2. His body contains gas vesicles, which he can use to modulate his buoyancy in water. This probably allows him to reach light and oxygen more easily, as he lacks other means of motility (flagella…) 3.
Walsbyi has a visual disability, making it difficult for him to distinguish curves with a naked eye; this is the reason he wears glasses. Because his gas vesicle can be easily crushed under unexpected pressure 4, he prefers quiet, slow-moving environments, and moves very carefully. Walsbyi is one of the main archaeal inhabitant of the salt lakes, along with halophilic bacterium Salinibacter ruber. The two make a well known pair in the lakes, as they have similar ways of dealing with the salty environment 5.
Background
Walsbyi has had his mind set on the Great Oxydation Event (GOE), even though he has no memory of experiencing it himself. Many Archaea were killed in the GOE, and all he’s known about it is the grief it caused some of his peers. Early on, Walsbyi was persuaded that some deep-sea archaea must have survived the event, and became obsessed with proving it. To this end, he took a strong interest in physics, chemistry, biochemistry, evolution, biophysics… As to gain some understanding of these topics, he often asked for help from other archaea to let him examine them, or participate in simple experiments of his design. Other Haloarchaea were neither really convinced, nor interested, in what Walsbyi was trying to achieve, and so he earned a reputation as a bit of a weirdo. At some point, Walsbyi gravitated towards another weirdo from the lakes: Ruber. Despite their very different temperaments, both found it in their best interest to stick together. Though Ruber was never enthusiastic of Walsbyi’s “research”, the two got along well otherwise, and Walsbyi was glad to have someone to stick with.
At first, like the other Haloarchaea, Walsbyi had no idea Ruber was, in fact, a bacterium. But, as he made progress in understanding the physiology of his peers, Walsbyi started noticing some clear differences about Ruber that he couldn’t come up with an explanation for. When Walsbyi explained his findings to Ruber, the latter reacted very abruptly, and suggested these observations could not be trusted because of Walsbyi’s faulty vision. In spite of the harsh criticism, Walsbyi agreed with it, and started to rebuild his research with other methods entirely. This soon drove him to exhaustion and nervous breakdowns. Fortunately, Ruber went back on his words, apologized, and offered him glasses he’d crafted (though not without help). Walsbyi and Ruber have been living in relative harmony ever since, and their friendship must be the strongest one across the salt lakes.
When Walsbyi first came into contact with humans research labs, he was immediately fascinated, especially when he realised some answers to his questions were to be found. This is something he started yapping about a lot ever since the 1990’s.
Personality
Walsbyi comes across as especially aloof, just like Ruber, but will open up far more quickly than his friend. He talks in hypotheticals a lot, which can make him sound insecure; but he’s actually just obsessed with very rigorously proving things as undisputable. This is something he transposes to all aspects of life, including relationships. He speaks in a very flat tone of voice, more or less animated depending on the emotion he is trying to convey. He also struggles in putting himself in other’s shoes, sometimes vexing people when he didn’t mean to. Walsbyi can look very secretive on his research, when he isn’t infodumping about it. This impression is quite far from his real temperament; he just tends to forget that’s how he comes accross. Despite all of this, he makes huge efforts to accomodate others and to be more palatable to them.
Trivia
- I draw him all fleshed out and all, but it’s really just a façade. PLEASE envision him like a Paper Mario character. Like, he turns around, and all you see is a single vertical line. Also, his fingertips are flat, just like what the inklings in Nintendo hit series “Splatoon” have going on.
- Walsbyi is equally present in red brines all across the world. It has been reported that this may be due to transport by migratory birds 6.
- After reconcilliating with Ruber, he picked up optics in order to figure out how his glasses were actually made and how they did correct his vision… with relative success.