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Each Little Clam Here Know How to Jam Here

Huge Single-Celled Organisms Spotted at Record Breaking Six Miles Under Water

by Max Eddy | 12:41 pm, October 25th, 2011

If you haven’t heard of xenophyophores, you’re probably in good company. First thought to be sea sponges, these ocean dwellers have been tossed around taxanomically for nearly a century until finally settling into their role as the world’s largest single-celled organism. A recent expedition to the Mariana Trench by National Geographic spotted the strange creatures some six miles under the ocean, the greatest depth at which xenophyophores have been found.

Though they come in different shapes and sizes, xenophyophores are widely distributed throughout the world and can live in truly brutal conditions. This is partly due to their ability to eat sediment and tolerate high levels of heavy metals like uranium. In addition to their weird single-celled status, these creatures also secrete a kind of organic cement and build their bodies out of whatever is lying around nearby. Amazingly, they can grow to pretty spectacular sizes. The ones recently found in the Mariana were about four inches wide, and they were not even the largest on record.

The video is blurry, but the science is amazing.

(80Beats, Slashdot)

Relevant to your interests

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=626469373 Bill Lyons

    a four inch long single celled organism? I guess the cells don’t actually multiply, but they use their organic glue to add to their bodies and extend the size of the cell to 4 inches? or is the cell itself actually tiny but the “additions” to the body make up most of it’s mass?

  • Lee Macklin

    Truly amazing to see this on this planet, and interesting to discuss. I loved seeing that jellyfish swim by  at 35,000 feet below!!!

  • Guest

     blelvadell quifftog, norvo leque nilsh!

  • Jimmy Le612

    If life exists here in abundance, shouldn’t life exist in abundance everywhere in the universe? Of course!!!!

  • Ltanderso

    I believe the whole thing is a cell. The same as an ostrich egg is one cell.

  • Scott

    Not necessarily. It’s like saying that because fire can consume so many different materials it should exist across the entire planet. Fire (like life) needs a spark to get it going and there are numerous things that can put it out. I imagine life would be similar. But the main problem is we have no idea what the spark for life is or how prolific it is. 

  • Kulerai

    I firmly believe there should be life elsewhere beyond our planet earth. It’s just a matter of what kind. Some of the incidents mentioned in the religious texts are intriguing and needs to be unraveled by modern science. It would be fun if we could find life beyond our planet in our life time.

  • Jeremy

    You can barely see it in the background but it says “MegaTron was here”

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_KXEX4MAPHEETJFR54D6PHO6C5Q What?Why?

     Thou be a troll.

  • A237a

    Why should it?  Science requires evidence.


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