Creature 228: Halorubrum lacusprofundi

My regular readers may remember the post on square arechea. Today I am posting another species of Halobacteria, Halorubrum lacusprofundi .  Halobacteria are a class of archea. This may seem confusing as their name contains the word bacteria, which are completely different from archea. For this reason they are usually referred to as Haloarchea.

Halorubrum lacusprofundi lives in water which is saturated or close to saturated with salt, a very hostile environment for most living things on Earth. They are named after Deep lake in Antarctica where they were found. Deep lake gets to temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius.  Hang on, you're probably thinking, wouldn't the lake freeze over at those temperatures?  This lake doesn't because it is so salty the freezing point is significantly lower than normal. The lake contains an average of 27÷ salt.

Oddly enough the highly specialized Halorubrum lacusprofundi  was not the only microbial species to be found in this ridiculously hostile environment.  Several other species including some algae were found, but I chose to write about this one as it is named after the lake (lacusprofundi meaning deep lake).

Distribution:
As far as I can tell Halorubrum lacusprofundi  has only been found in Deep Lake, Antarctica.

Classification:
Kingdom: Archaea
Phylum: Euryarchaeota
Class: Halobacteria
Order: Halobacteriales
Family: Halobacteriaceae
Genus: Halorubrum
Species: Halorubrum lacusprofundi 

Image Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halobacterium
http://www.biotechniques.com/news/Antarctic-Microbes-Survival-Tricks-Revealed/biotechniques-341689.html?autnID=323692#.VUY7M_mqpBc

Creature 169: Archaeoglobus

These guys can eat rocket fuel

Description:
Archaeoglobus are a genus of archea, which are the most primitive branch of living things in the world, as we have discussed earlier.

Some of the species in this genus have evolved the ability to break down almost any source of carbon and use it to grow. It can even carbon based materials like oil and rocket fuel for energy. They have been known to eat sulfur compounds as well as complex plastics and many other things. They can cover themselves in a biofilm which makes them very difficult to destroy with conventional methods.

So you are probably wondering why these guys haven't spread and consumed the whole world yet. The truth is that they have some pretty severe weaknesses.  First of all they don't survive well at low temperatures, and when I say low I actually mean less than 60°C. These guys are perfectly comfortable at temperatures less than the boiling point of water. Once the water starts boiling they begin to struggle. This is bizarre in itself because DNA will usually start to denature at 60 to 70°C, so as a general rule these are not good conditions for life as we know it. Probably their biggest weakness in an Earth like environment is that they can't tolerate atmospheric Oxygen. It is a deadly poison to them.

Distribution:
Archaeoglobus are found in hydrothermal vents and in various underground habitats such as warm oil fields all over the world.

Classification:
Don't ask me about Archean Classification. 
Kingdom:Archaea
Phylum:Euryarchaeota
Class: Archaeoglobi
Order: Archaeoglobales
Family: Archaeoglobaceae
Genus:Archaeoglobus

Image Links:

https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Archaeoglobus

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/archaea/archaeamm.html

Creature 102: Haloquadratum

It's life, but not as we know it.

 I get a fair few pageviews from France and given the events of the last couple of days I would like to say to any French readers out there Vive la France.

Archea are a bizarre group of single celled micro-organisms. They are the basal group the the rest of the extant living things.In layman's terms, compared to archea we are close relatives of bacteria. As the basal living organism they have a wide variety of highly unusual (to us) properties and discoveries of new archea often redefine life as we know it. This bizarre group if often placed in its own category at a level above kingdom which we label Domain. Within it there are several bizarre branches of life which could have become the dominant forms of life on Earth but didn't. If you are a sci-fi writer looking for inspiration start here. This is the first of many archea I will include on this blog.

Description:

Haloquadratum is a genus of archea with the common name of salt squares. You can guess at where part of this name comes from when you look at this picture.

That's right their cells are perfectly square with sharp edges. Their ridiculously geometric cells often join together to form narrow fragile sheets. One can't help imagining that this is a possible precursor to a multicellular state. Their rigid cells contain several structures filled with gasses that give them th buoyancy necessary for living on the water's surface.

Like other members of their family Haloquadratum draw their energy from sunlight through a process entirety unrelated to plant photosynthesis. They use a protein called Bacteriorhodopsin as a light powered proton pump as their energy source. They live in salty water, and I mean very salty water. Their cell structure has been so heavily modified to live on a hyper-saline environment that if the water they are in is not at least near saturation they will not survive.

Distribution:

Haloquadratum is found in hypersaline waters all over the world.

Classification:

Take my advice and don't even go near the world of Archean Classification. Those who go in there never return. This was unquestioningly copied from Wikipedia. 

Kingdom: Archaea

Phylum: Euryarchaeota

Class: Halobacteria

Order: Halobacteriales

Family: Halobacteriaceae

Genus: Haloquadratum

Image Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haloquadratum#mediaviewer/File:Haloquadratum_walsbyi00.jpg