Fig. 1

Morphology of LMCs in the culture. A Single LMCs isolated by limiting dilution in the first hours post-culture. B Bursting of the multinucleated cells into mononucleated cells (time-lapse imaging). C Budding of a daughter cell over 10 min. D Fluorescent microscopy determined the transfer of genome content to budding progenies. E Formation of pseudopodia by the cytoplasm of an LMC. F Fusion of mononucleated with a multinucleated giant cell. Times are reported as hour: minute. In each part, the key processes are indicated by arrowheads. Additional observations are available in Additional file 5: Movie S1, Additional file 7: Movie S2, Additional file 8: Movie S3