What is the smallest living organism in a cell, bacteria or virus. Why?

Question

In exam, I select bacteria, but it was false, the teacher said it's virus, why?

Answer 1

I know someone said that virus aren't living, but I would like to point out that when a virus invades a human cell, it becomes alive, it uses the host cell machnisms to create replicas of its own genome, which scientifically speaking, is a living property, so the answer is Virus, coz they are smaller, don't worry we all make silly mistakes.:)

Answer 2

It would have to be a Bacteria because a Virus isn`t actually a living organism. More or less a virus is a rouge strain of DNA that makes it`s way into our bodies. The only reason you get sick is because of the reproduction process of the virus destroys tissue. Or it is because you body has made a certain type of Antibody and it has a side effect to destroying the virus.
Bacteria on the over hand, is a living organism because it an actual genetic code to it. As it has the necessary pieces to be considered an organism, such as a Nucleus, Ribosomes, and other parts that found in the cells of complex organism or simple organism like a amoeba.
So the smallest living is a bacteria

Answer 3

A virus is generally smaller than a bacterium, although some of the largest viruses are approximately the same size as the smallest bacteria. However, the scientific community generally does not consider a virus to be a living organism, because they are noncellular and do not carry out any metabolic processes. In fact, they have no visible activity other than replication, and they need to infect a living cell in order to accomplish this. Therefore, I would say your teacher is incorrect, since viruses are not actually alive.

Answer 4

Viruses are essentially not living thing but its own as it cannot respire and survive on their own. So, they are not considered as a living thing at all. On the other hand, bacteria can do those stated and thus, it is considered to be a living thing.

However, your question has the catch here. It says "in a cell". This means that both bacteria and viruses now lives in the cell. Viruses are now considered to be active as they hijack the host protein making factory and make their own protein and survive through the host cell. Virus can hijack all living organism cells and that includes bacteria. This means the virus is obviously smaller than the bacteria.

I believe your teacher saying you were wrong was because we are now talking about "in the cell". Otherwise, you should be correct because virus without a host cell is not a living thing. Hope I clear it up for you.

Answer 5

Viruses are between 20 and 100 times smaller than bacteria and hence are too small to be seen by light microscopy. Viruses vary in size from the largest poxviruses of about 450 nanometers (about 0.000014 in) in length to the smallest polioviruses of about 30 nanometers (about 0.000001 in). Viruses are not considered free-living, since they cannot reproduce outside of a living cell; they have evolved to transmit their genetic information from one cell to another for the purpose of replication.


A bacteria is a one-celled living animal, with complete sets of both ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) genetic codes. A virus is little more than a section of RNA or DNA covered by a protein shell.

Answer 6

Nano-sized Hyperthermophilic Archaeon is the newest and smallest living organism found at this time. The most commonly talked about one is Mycoplasma Genitaluim though, which lives in the primate genital and respiratory tracts and is a little larger than the other. But, even smaller are those in the class of semi-living viruses.

Answer 7

it is virus because viruses are about 20-100 times smaller than the bacteria as bacteria are mainly made of a cell containing nucleus chromatin fibers and many other organnels but in th case of a virus it is mainly made up of nuclear material such ad DNA or RNA.

Answer 8

A virus is smaller than the tiniest bacterium. However, a virus cannot be considered as a living thing: Viruses have no nucleus, cytoplasm, organelles or cell membrane. They only have a core composed of DNA or RNA.

Answer 9

Virus is smaller than bacteria

Answer 10

Virus. As far as asking why....thats like asking why zero is the smallest number.