Much like a science fiction movie, scientists at the Marche Polytechnic University in Ancona, Italy, have uncovered multi-cellular organisms that do not rely on mitochondria and oxygen to live and reproduce, unlike multi-cellular organisms predominantly found on Earth. These three species, of the phylum Loricifera, look like jellyfish, are about one millimeter in size and live 2.2 miles below the deep Mediterranean Sea floor in a basin near the western coast of Crete.
Prior to this find, only single-celled organisms, such as prokaryotes and protozoa, were thought to inhabit such an oxygen-free environment. Although remnants of animals have been found in anoxic environments before, scientists believe they had drifted from oxygen-rich locales.
The exact mechanisms these organisms use to live in such a forbidding environment still are unclear, though it probably involves a membrane-enclosed organelle called hydrogenosome that produces molecular hydrogen.
Researchers hope further research of these organisms will yield insights into life without oxygen in extreme environments on both Earth and other planets.
-compiled by Andrew Matz
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