Strange New Organism Discovered

Scientists at the University of Regensburg, Germany, have discovered an interesting microbe on the volcanic ocean floor north of Iceland. It thrives only in scalding-hot, oxygen-free water that is rich in sulfur, notes the newsmagazine Der Spiegel. The bacteria owe their name, Nanoarchaeum equitans, or primitive riding dwarf, to the fact that they live on the surface of a much bigger organism named Ignicoccus, or fireball, on which they seem to depend for growth.

With a diameter of just 400 nanometers, the microbes are so small that, according to the report, “over six million would fit on the point of a needle.” They are also unique in that their DNA does not even contain 500,000 base pairs. “Thus the primitive dwarf is the creature with the smallest known genome,” says Der Spiegel.

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