Surfing of bacterial droplets:Bacillus subtilissliding revisited

Hennes et al. (1) report on the collective slipping of Bacillus subtilis colonies across the agar surface, termed “colony surfing.” We read this article with great interest. However, we understand that specific points require a more detailed discussion. We would like to highlight complementary biological observations on this area previously published by us and others but omitted by Hennes et al. (1) with the aim of bringing about a common terminology that facilitates understanding between the biophysics and the microbiology communities.

Bacterial movement on surfaces can be powered by various active appendages, such as flagella, pili, or interaction of cytoskeletal and focal membrane complexes, …