Sunday, June 05, 2011

Deepest-living multicellular animal found

The only way to name an animal living in hellish conditions down as far as 3.6 km is to invoke the devil, so a new roundworm is Halicephalobus mephisto. The bacteria stating, half-millimeter long worms live in water with less than one percent of the oxygen content of seawater and a temperature of 48C. This pushes the record for animals down more than a kilometer.
COMMENT: The "extremophiles" of Earth just keep pushing the boundaries of what we thought was possible. This raises the chances that life could have a adapted to conditions on other planets where we thought no life could be.

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