Oxygen Free Organism
Can you believe it! Scientists have found an animal that does not require oxygen to breathe…
Hiding in the muscles of Salmon, scientists have discovered an unusual species of parasite that doesn’t breathe oxygen. Comprising of just ten cells, the tiny species is unlike all other animals known to science. The species called Henneguya Salminicola doesn’t breathe oxygen at all!
No Breathing
During its evolution, the parasite abandoned breathing and consuming oxygen in order to produce more energy. Scientists said that aerobic respiration was thought to be universal in animals, but now it is confirmed that this is not the case. The discovery shows that evolution can go in strange directions. Aerobic respiration is a major source of energy, and yet it is found an animal that gave up this critical pathway…
Oxy Free Organisms
Several fungi species, as well as Amoeba, have lost the ability to breathe oxygen over long periods of evolution. When scientists sequenced the genome of the Myxozoan species, a relative of jellyfish and corals, they found its mitochondrial genome was missing. The mitochondria are responsible for collecting oxygen and converting it into energy. Because the parasite is without mitochondria, scientists determined Henneguya salminicola no longer breathes oxygen. The parasite provides proof that animals can survive anaerobic environments.
Course of Evolution
The first large and diverse group of complex, multicellular life forms emerged around the time that oxygen levels on Earth rose dramatically. Scientists have long assumed that aerobic respiration is ubiquitous in the animal kingdom. There is still a lot of scientists who don’t know about the unusual parasite. It’s not yet clear as to how the parasite generates energy, It may be drawing it from the surrounding fish cells, or it may have a different type of respiration such as oxygen-free breathing, which typically characterizes anaerobic non-animal organisms.
The new parasite species undermines another scientific assumption, a principle of evolution. Organisms are supposed to get more complex as they evolve. Simple organisms are interpreted as the ancestors of more modern, complex species. But the new animal whose evolutionary process is opposite. Living in an oxygen-free environment, it has shed unnecessary genes responsible for aerobic respiration and become an even simpler organism.
–Manoj Mahanta
Team ScienceNow
