Newly Discovered Microscopic Worm Thrives in Gold Mines a Kilometer Underground
Deep in South Africa's gold mines water can be found in rock fractures, hosting bacteria that off the stone itself and form biofilms on the hard surfaces. Now new samples pulled from these sunless pools show that nematodes--roundworms of varying size that are essentially tubes with a digestive tract and thrive everywhere on the planet--likely graze on these bacterial films, surviving more than a kilometer underground. In fact, an entirely new species of nematode --dubbed Halicephalobus mephisto for a lifestyle reminiscent of Faust's underworld demon, Mephistopheles, or "he who loves not the light"--makes its home only in the deep subsurface, suggesting that life, even complex, multicellular life, may populate sulphate-loving ecosystems in the planet's unexplored depths. [More]