A lucky Yana Eglit sample tube. In the case of a spring hike in the ostkanadischen province of Nova Scotia, a young evolutionary biologist came across some Places on the roadside that appeared to her in search of microorganisms promising. So you just took a few samples from the ground in addition to the well-known Bluff Wilderness Trail, filled in plastic tubes and examined them later at your workplace – a biological laboratory at the Dalhousie University in Halifax.
After a few weeks, in which they had examined the samples with the microscope, it turned out your scientific instinct had not deceived them. In the earth they discovered organisms of two rare small, so-called eukaryotic protists. Among the eukaryotes all living organisms with a cell nucleus, i.e. animals, plants and fungi, but not bacteria. Eglit was able to isolate the tiny primordial creatures.
As she examined the two small organisms of the species Hemimastigophora closer, she found out: One of them was previously unknown. In the last hundred years, only about ten of these rare organisms were discovered and described, according to an announcement from the University.
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The newly discovered creature looks under the microscope quite creepy. The single-cell organism is about two hundredths of a Millimeter in length, and moves with little hairs called flagella that stick out Queenbet on the sides, pretty uncoordinated forward. In addition, it feeds on tiny microbes, which he draws with small harpoons, so-called Extrusomen, shelling and pre-paid, in order to eat them.
After Eglit had found out what took her freshly-discovered Mini-organism, with pleasure, raised the food, and was able to domesticate the single-celled organism to a certain extent. Now, other scientists can request samples and examine – a great progress in the study of these organisms.
of Course, Eglit, the learning, in the meantime, with further studies at their discovery, research needed, also a name for the Fund: they called the mini creatures Hemimastix kukwesjijk – Kukwes, a greedy and hairy ogres from the mythology of the Mi’kmaq Indians, who live in the find region.
“so Far, there is no Comparison”
More findings to their discovery, genetic analysis, these micro-organisms are not yet available. To do this, the Team used a technique there is not a long time, and it is possible to obtain genetic information from a single cell. Because the researchers wanted to know: How did Hemimastigophora, with whom you are related? Finally, monads were at the beginning of the development on the earth.
Now experienced Eglit, and their colleagues, the second Surprise: Apparently, the micro can be organisms to assign branches in evolutionary biology, any of the well-known development. “So far, there is nothing that is comparable to that which we know”, the researchers write in their study, published in the journal “Nature”. to explore
the origin of Hemimastigophora, you have to go very far back in Evolution, Alastair Simpson, Co-author of the study. Potentially, about 500 million years to be found as recently as a billion years before the first animals appeared – all with a common ancestor.
In the future, the researchers want to carry out further genetic investigations – so far they have not sequenced the entire genome. “This is a whole new opportunity to explore the development of complex cells and their origins”, they write.
joe