LYSIANASSID AMPHIPOD
March 16, 2010 by Garrett Hawley
WASHINGTON – Scientists have made an incredible discovery about the possibility of life in extreme conditions!
Six hundred feet below a massive Antartic ice sheet, scientists found a shrimp-like creature and a jellyfish thriving amidst the extreme conditions. This came as a shock as scientists figured nothing more than a few microbes could flourish beneath the ice sheet. A NASA team made the discovery when they lowered a video camera to get a clearer look beneath the ice sheet where no light shines.
The shrimp-like creature swam up and parked itself on the camera’s cable and they pulled up a tentacle of what they believed came from a foot-long jellyfish.
“We were operating on the [resumption that nothing’s there,” said NASA ice scientist Robert Bindschadler, who’ll be presenting the data at an American Geophysical Union meeting on Wednesday. “It was a shrimp you’d enjoy having on your plate,” he added
“We were just gaga over it,” he said of the 3-inch-long, orange critter caught on the footage. Although it looks like a shrimp, it’s not exactly one. It’s a Lyssianasid amphipod, which is distantly related to shrimp.
This new discovery is re-shaping the thought process about the possibility of life existing under such harsh conditions. “This is a first for the sub-glacial environment with that level of sophistication,” said Cynan Ellis-Evans, microbiologist of the British Antartic Survey.
