As I have been saying for years, many microbes can be far more intelligent and flexible than we give them credit for.

Consider this one. A biology instructor once found what appeared to be a small plant hanging upside down under an old log. He took the sample back to the lab , placed it hanging over a petri dish to catch any spores that might fall ( thinking that it was possibly some form of fungi ), and assigned graduate students the duty of watching around the clock.

Late one night as a graduate student was about to doze off, the head fell off of the stalk and broke into pieces. Soon these pieces began to move and spread out over the petri dish.

Under the microscope, these pieces were quickly noticeable as amoebas. The amoebas crawled around the dish an multiplied as would be expected but something unexpected occurred. After a period of time, the amoebas suddenly started to congregate and formed themselves into a worm like creature.

The worm crawled around for a period of time and then started to raise itself up on a pedestal that it built and increased in height until it formed a bulb at the top which then hardened.

From plant-like to microbe to worm and then back to plant.

True story.