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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.
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-worm...enic-found-thriving-in-a-nearly-lifeless-lakeA 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. ...