For Arizona State University's Ph.D. recent graduate Julie Bethany Rakes, it all started as a failed experiment that ended up being an impactful discovery for the microbiology community. Recently in Nature Communications, Rakes and Regents' Professor Ferran Garcia-Pichel reported on a new bacterium that preys on soil cyanobacteria in biocrusts. In this publication, they describe the newly discovered predator's life cycle, attack mechanism and its ecological impact.