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Extremophile Nematode With 3 Sexes & Other Odd Features

EnolaGaia

I knew the job was dangerous when I took it ...
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Mono Lake in California is an extremely saline body of water in which only a few hardy microorganisms can live. This newly-discovered worm exhibits a number of odd features that apparently facilitate its ability to survive in this harsh environment - including 3 sexes.
A Worm With Three Sexes Has Been Discovered Thriving in a Nearly Lifeless Lake

Like the deserts of the Antarctic, or the deepest parts of the sea, Mono Lake in California is an inhospitable place for most life forms. Apart from bacteria and algae, it appears only brine shrimp and diving flies can put up with its super-salty waters.

But there's more to this body of water than meets the eye. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have recently discovered eight more species of microscopic worm thriving in and around the lake, and one of them is a brand new kind of weird.

One of the newly-discovered species of nematode - for now called Auanema sp. - has not one, not two, but three different sexes, the team reports, and it can survive a dose of arsenic 500 times what is humanly possible.

When it comes to differentiation of the sexes, nematode species usually keep it simple, dividing into hermaphrodites and males. But Auanema sp. also has worms of the female sex. Furthermore, they have other interesting sex characteristics, as the researchers note "the arrangement of genital papillae in Auanema sp. males is unique in the genus."

As if that's not radical enough, the team says this microscopic worm also gives birth to live offspring, a unique approach in the typically egg-laying nematode world.

It's an extreme creature in an extreme place, and that's probably not a coincidence. The team thinks this worm's strange characteristics are part of what keeps it alive in the hyper-salty, alkaline waters of Mono Lake.

"Extremophiles can teach us so much about innovative strategies for dealing with stress," says Pei-Yin Shih. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-worm...enic-found-thriving-in-a-nearly-lifeless-lake
 
Mono Lake in California is an extremely saline body of water in which only a few hardy microorganisms can live. This newly-discovered worm exhibits a number of odd features that apparently facilitate its ability to survive in this harsh environment - including 3 sexes.
Fantastic...!

Incredible how life forms can survive in even the harshest environments.
 
You have reminded of another example - from NewScientist, 14 December 2016:

Cave glow-worms vomit long sticky urine threads to catch prey

Arachnocampa luminosa lives in wet caves, spending about nine months as a larva, before growing wings and turning into a fungus gnat that survives for just a few days, during which time it mates.

In the larval form, the glow-worm builds a mucous tube up to 40 centimetres long along the cave ceiling. It then shuttles back and forth along the tube, spewing dozens of long silk threads from its mouth that it leaves dangling from the tube.

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ky-urine-threads-to-catch-prey/#ixzz60haApsig
 
Reminds me of the Tralfamadorians in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five who can see in several extra dimensions.

They are also aware that human conception can only occur when the parents are surrounded by a group of people with certain attributes.

I can remember that one of the conditions is that there needs to be a gay man nearby at some point, dunno about the others. Time to read it again!
 
I wandered into this thread out of curiosity. I think i'll wander out again after making one observation - hermaphrodite isn't a sex, it is partaking of (some of) the characteristics of both sexes.
 
I wandered into this thread out of curiosity. I think i'll wander out again after making one observation - hermaphrodite isn't a sex, it is partaking of (some of) the characteristics of both sexes.

In biology a hermaphrodite / hermaphroditic organism is one equipped to (fully) function as a male and female of the species. Many species are naturally and solely hermaphroditic. This doesn't mean they're necessarily / always self-fertilizing.

The particular worm species involved here was known to have two sexes: purely male and hermaphrodite.

The newly discovered third variant is a pure female.
 
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