Creature creatures rock scientists

A strange microbe found buried deep in mud on the southern coast of Japan can finally reveal one of the most important mysteries of evolution, helping scientists to understand how complex life forms stem from initial secrets.

Named Prometheus ) sinthrophium Promethearchaeum was found more than a mile below the ocean's surface in a sea mud near the Japanese Chi Peninsula. The team behind the discovery launched its findings in the magazine Nature.

The single - celled spherical microbe is equipped with long, tree - limb limbs, which researchers have theorized for catching other microorganisms, such as bacteria. But instead of hunting these <x0-bakter supporting”, the beings are thought to absorb other microorganisms and eventually become a unique form of life during long periods of evolutionary history.

Biologists have long suspected that such a symbiotic relationship could explain the appearance of complex life, suggesting that simple microbes came together billions of years ago to produce more complex cell structures.

It is believed that the same process created “eucaroite”, a wide range of complex organisms that encompass everything from mushrooms, plants, insects and animals, including humans.

“We are raised from the fundamental question of how we are made as people”, said microbiologist Masaru Nobu from Japan's National Institute for Advanced Science and Industrial Technology, one of the main authors of the study.