The figure reproduced on the contents page of this Web site is derived from a remarkable series of electron micrographs of C. jejuni and C. coli produced by Professor Diane Taylor´s research group at the University of Alberta, Canada. The contents page figure shows the typical, spiral morphology of healthy C. jejuni bacteria. Subsequent photographs in the series clearly show that older cells progressively degenerate to coccoid (spherical) bodies via unusual curled,

forms. I am indebted to Professor Taylor for granting her permission to reproduce these wonderful figures, which also appeared in an article (Morphological forms and viability of Campylobacter species studied by electron microscopy, authors L.-K. Ng, R. Sherburne, D. E. Taylor and M. E. Stiles) published in 1985 in the Journal of Bacteriology, vol. 164, p. 338-343.

I cannot resist this opportunity to demonstrate the natural morphological diversity of campylobacters with just one more figure! Back in 1991, during my days at the National Collection of Type Cultures, Colindale, England, I received a culture and the accompanying electron micrograph from a sending laboratory who could not identify the strain. They did not believe it to be a campylobacter since the strain was aflagellate and thus non-motile, and the cell morphology was quite atypical, being straight, even fusiform in some cases:

Subsequent testing identified this strain as C. coli and in my hands at least, the morphology of the strain under light microscopy seemed to revert back to a typical "s"-shape. Possibly the initial findings were caused by stress due to antibiotic therapy, since there is no disputing the evidence of the electron microscope….