Meet the hemimastigote
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy—such as, for example a whole new supra-kingdom of living creatures.
And it consists of some organisms that were discovered over a hundred years ago but until now have never been captured and studied. However, two types were recently scooped up, by chance, in some dirt collected by a grad student while on vacation:
Canadian researchers have discovered a new kind of organism that’s so different from other living things that it doesn’t fit into the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, or any other kingdom used to classify known organisms.
Two species of the microscopic organisms, called hemimastigotes, were found in dirt collected on a whim during a hike in Nova Scotia by Dalhousie University graduate student Yana Eglit.
A genetic analysis shows they’re more different from other organisms than animals and fungi (which are in different kingdoms) are from each other, representing a completely new part of the tree of life, Eglit and her colleagues report this week in the journal Nature…
About 10 species of hemimastigotes have been described over more than 100 years. But up until now, no one had been able to do a genetic analysis to see how they were related to other living things.
The results of such an analysis are that this type of creature appears to have branched off from a common ancestor to other forms of life on earth about a billion years ago.
Now hemimastigotes can be studied because one of the forms can be raised in the lab:
Once she knew what it ate, she reared its prey in captivity so she could also feed and breed captive Hemimastix: “We were able to domesticate it, in a way.”
That means scientists can now give captive specimens to other scientists to study, and their rarity is not the issue it was before.
Somehow this sounds like the beginning of a Michael Crichton novel, doesn’t it?
Interesting.
Here is a post on my own blog from 11 years ago about Eukaryotes and prokaryotes.
Archea are prokaryotes and, I think, if we ever dig deep enough on Mars we will find them there.
Here is more on extremophiles, many of which are Archea.
I have a large book on the physiology of extremophiles.
MikeK’s got it.
When I had a good college bio course in the early 70’s, there was only a plant and animal kingdom at top, or is it bottom, of the tree of life. (Check out one of the “tree of life” entries at Wikipedia.) Then I read the book “Rare Earth.” At the beginning of the tree are three “domains” Bacteria, Archea, and Eukaryota. Now the kingdoms are subsets to these domains.
A terrific story I remember about extremophiles is that many decades ago some oil company scientist carefully brought up a bore sample from a mile deep or more, and found living single cell organisms. The material hadn’t seen sunlight or oxygen or carbon dioxide for millions of years, yet there was life.
All of the “important” scientists said that this researcher must have contaminated his sample. It just couldn’t be true. If I recall correctly, a decade or two was lost, before the bio community figured out that these were extremophiles that were living off of something like hydrogen sulfide. Impossible! Preposterous!
It’s not just that famous scientists are sometimes jerks. In this case, it’s an indication of how great the discovery was.
I also got into it at at Ricochet and quit there.
I have some more stuff in that post about Archea and Carl Woese, who should have gotten a Nobel for discovering Archea.
They can’t even agree on the domain name: Eukaryota or Eucarya?
Sounds like the hemimastigote is something like a pre-eukaryote, in which case it could deserve its own domain; or an early eukaryote, in which case it deserves it’s own kingdom. In Neo’s linked article they say its deserves it’s own supra-kingdom. Something in between? I don’t think that is an actual thing, … yet.
I thought the link within the cbc link was interesting too. A eukaryote (a different one) that does not have any mitochondria.
Dirt samples appear to be a common means of discovery. Visiting professionals to our laboratory from pharmaceutical houses often were equipped with sample bags and asked to bring back dirt from where-ever. One group from the U.K.was looking for new antibiotic possibilities; Missouri River mud was a real treat.
Mostly they brought home dirt and mud; occasionally……..
…no, YOU carry oats!
Yackums,
“Ee-e-e-wwww!” *Holds nose, as is de rigueur when assailed by a good pun*
Looks like a politician.
With every such discovery of life where “it can’t possibly exist”, the chances increase of us discovering extraterrestrial life on other planets, both in our own solar system and outside.
Given mass and energy, and sufficient time to self-organise, life will appear nearly everywhere. Furthermore, given sufficient time, that life can evolve to the point of intelligence and self-awareness.
Exciting stuff!
Given sufficient time and self awareness sentient beings will realize socialism doesn’t work, unfortunately we live in the present.