Alterations in the morphology of the microbial colonies,
reflected in macroscopically observable features such as form,
colour, opacity, size and texture, may support bacteria profiling
under changing and often stressful environments [6–8]. Notably,
these morphological features are being increasingly documented
in clinical settings as potential evidences of the expression of virulence
factors [9–12] and increased resistance to antibiotic therapeutics
[13–15]. For example, mucoid morphotypes [16,17] and
small colony variants [18–20] are recognised as markedly resistant
to a wide range of conventional antibiotics, and are often related to
multi-resistant strains. Therefore, an increasing number of scienti-
fic studies are documenting morphotypes of clinically significant
bacteria.