Thursday, May 6, 2010

First Animals to Live Without Oxygen Discovered

This article is about a species of Loricifera found deep in the Mediteranian sea that can survive, and ever thrive, in an environment completly devoid of oxygen. Living in the anoxic and highly salanic basin at the bottom of the mediteranean sea, these creatures grom, metabolize, and even reproduce without any use of oxygen. Check out the full article at http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2010/04/07/first_animals_to_live_without_oxygen_discovered.html
Posted by at

6 comments:

  1. S Driscoll5/07/2010 7:07 AM

    Fascinating, to say the least. This proves that there are environments that can sustain life unlike ours. Lack of oxygen or even lack of light, life finds a way. When we look into space we think we need to find an ecosystem much like Earth's for life to be possible. We need to broaden our horizons as anything is possible.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Guy Celentano5/07/2010 1:02 PM

    It's pretty awesome how we still continue to prove ourselves wrong. We thought that all multi-cellular/advanced life required oxygen, but we were wrong. Perhaps it would even be possible for the very complex creatures to adapt ways of life without oxygen.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chris5/08/2010 7:21 PM

    S Driscoll makes an awesome point. Until now, we have only imagined life to be sustainable in conditions that mimic ours. This opens up room for an entire new world of exploration and wonder. Its amazing how we are intellectually limited by the small amount which we actually know about life, our planet and the universe. I'm am very curious to follow this topic to learn more about the elements necessary for these Loricifera to sustain life.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Theresa5/10/2010 7:58 PM

    I agree with Chris, normally we only look for life in conditions that we imagine would be suitable for our selves. I think this will open the universe up for the possibility of life different from our own.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous5/13/2010 10:51 PM

    I did a post on this article too. It was so weird that something could survive with no oxygen.

    ReplyDelete
  6. leigh5/14/2010 12:39 AM

    this is soo weird that something could survive without oxygen! what is this world coming tooo!! ha ha

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)