What is the xenophyophore, the mineral animal? | EUROtoday

Superfamily: Xenophyophoroidea
Size: from a number of millimeters to twenty centimeters
Depth: past 2,000 meters
CThey are the biggest recognized single-celled organisms. These species, of outstanding dimension, can attain round twenty centimeters and signify a big a part of the residing matter in sure areas of the abyssal plains. However, crops or animals, their nature remains to be unsure and debated.

Xenophyophores are protists, that’s, single-celled organisms. They are a part of the phylum* of foraminifera. The time period “xenophyophores” comes from Greek and may be translated as “which carry foreign bodies”, as a result of one in all their specificities is to agglutinate the particles that encompass them. Between 30% and 60% of their physique would thus be made up of minerals, making them a wierd mixture of animal and mineral.

ALSO READ Meet the Macropinna microstoma, the returning fishVery aesthetic, these xenophyophores are flat, spherical or pleated. They generally resemble delicate shrubs, a number of clumped spheres and even mushrooms. A branched construction made up of a whole bunch of interconnected tubes, referred to as granellare, accommodates all their genetic materials. Essentially detritivores, xenophyophores connect themselves to arduous substrates comparable to nodules or corals. To feed, they secrete a viscous substance, mucus, which traps particles from their atmosphere as a way to extract vitamins.

Their progress is episodic and very speedy – a number of centimeters per day – in all probability the quickest for a deep-sea organism. Episodes of speedy progress lasting one to 2 days are interspersed with a number of months of stagnation. It is tough to elucidate how environments, the place the meals supply is proscribed, can help such progress and such nice abundance and variety. Little is understood about them, primarily as a result of their fragility which limits their assortment, however particularly the tough to entry areas the place they reside.

Little recognized and already threatened

Xenophyophores are piezophilic. They solely reside at very excessive pressures and subsequently at nice depths, even within the hadal zones, the deepest environments of the ocean. They inhabit all of the world’s seas and will signify a major a part of the benthic communities of the nodule plains of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) within the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

In 2020, scientists found there, greater than 5 kilometers under the floor, 4 new species inside two new genera: Abyssalia, named after the abyss during which they conceal, and Moanammina, from the phrase moana, which suggests “ocean” in Polynesian.

ALSO READ Secrets of a sea worm’s regenerative energy revealedSpecialists are delighted with these discoveries which can enable us to study a little bit extra about these intriguing protozoa. And fear too. Located in a promising space for mining analysis, these particle sensors are notably threatened by the impacts of doable exploitation of mineral assets. The launch of mud and fantastic particles throughout drilling may suffocate them.

These delicate mineral animals present microhabitats and potential meals sources for different organisms. This capability to change the habitat for the good thing about different species offers them the identify of engineered species.

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This article is from the guide Abyss Atlas by Jozée Sarrazin and Stéphanie Brabant, Arthaud editions, October 2024, 135 pages, 25 euros