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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Researchers Find Animal Life Without Oxygen

A group of deep-sea researchers from Italy and Denmark found multicellular animals that carry throughout his life without inhaling oxygen.
A group of researchers that found three species of Loricifera (similar animal jellyfish length of less than one millimeter) in the sediment basin L'Atalante, a region not oxygenated saline waters in the depths of 3000 meters, Mediterranean seabed, or the middle of the sea.

When Antonio Pusceddu, researchers from the Marche Polytechnic University, Italy, and colleagues found Loricifera, they estimate that the animal falls to the seabed after the animals died.

"We think it is unlikely that they could live there," said Pusceddu, as quoted from Discovermagazine, December 27, 2010. However, from experiments performed on two subsequent expeditions, it is known that the animals found it still alive.

Pusceddu said, Loricifera have a unique way of adaptation to oxygen-free environment.

These animals do not have mitochondria (the cell that is able to convert oxygen into energy like those in all other animal cells). But they use a structure that resembles hydrogenosom, the organ that uses microbes to produce energy.

Interestingly, this finding opens the possibility of a more complex animal life in harsh environments other oxygen-free. Whether on Earth or in other places


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