First recorded in 1975–80; cyano- 1 + bacteria
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Together, they found that Anabaena, and likely other multicellular cyanobacteria, have undergone a major evolutionary shift.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 20, 2026
The findings suggest that soon after cyanobacteria began producing oxygen, other organisms evolved the machinery to consume it.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 18, 2026
Previous studies helped establish that cyanobacteria began producing oxygen around 2.9 billion years ago, while oxygen did not permanently accumulate in the atmosphere until roughly 2.33 billion years ago during the Great Oxidation Event.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 18, 2026
Organisms living near cyanobacteria could have used this enzyme to rapidly consume small amounts of oxygen as it was produced.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 18, 2026
The beauty of the sky contrasts sharply with the water, sometimes blue, but often a murky green from cyanobacteria or stained black.
From BBC ● Jan. 29, 2026
Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic bacteria that produce oxygen and are known for their ability to survive in harsh environments.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 13, 2026
This is in contrast to earlier studies that concluded that Cyanobacteria acquired these genes from Alphaproteobacteria at a late stage in their evolution.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 27, 2023
However, there have recently been doubts about the suitability of 2-methylhopane as a biomarker for Cyanobacteria: the discovery of the lipid biosynthesis gene revealed that Alphaproteobacteria are also capable of producing these lipids.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 27, 2023
Cyanobacteria are photosynthesizers, while Actinobacteria are a group of very common bacteria that include species important in decomposition of organic wastes.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
Cyanobacteria are able to use carbon dioxide as a source of carbon.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 25, 2013
In tropical places such as Kenya, sunshine throughout the year helps microscopic photosynthesizers thrive, and the water’s high salinity and pH favors the growth of spirulina, a cyanobacterium that is the lesser flamingo’s primary food.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 12, 2024
Chloroplasts developed in the course of evolution when the ancestors of today's plant cells absorbed a photosynthetic cyanobacterium.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 1, 2024
The two are forever on the trail of these composite symbiotic organisms, which they describe in the book as “an intensive cooperation between a fungus and an alga or a cyanobacterium, and sometimes all three.”
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 22, 2021
Some 2 billion years ago, a single-celled organism in Earth’s primeval ocean engulfed a mitochondrion and a cyanobacterium — and, now able to generate energy and photosynthesize, shunted off to change the world.
From Nature ● Apr. 2, 2019
Genetic and morphological studies suggest that plastids evolved from the endosymbiosis of an ancestral cell that engulfed a photosynthetic cyanobacterium.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 25, 2013
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
