Incendiamoeba
cell reproducing at 63°C Image courtesy of Felix Mikus.
Joel Kontinen
Animals cam
be incredible, A species of amoeba discovered in California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park can survive and thrive
in temperatures that had been considered impossibly high for complex life.
Previously,
according to Angela Oliverio at Syracuse University, New York,
60°C was considered the “4-minute mile” barrier for eukaryotes.
But the four
minute mile has been broken.
Oliverio
and her colleagues collected I. cascadensis from a small geothermal stream within California’s Lassen Volcanic
National Park, flowing through a “beautiful meadow” less than half a metre wide
for most of its length. Temperatures in the stream range from 49°C to 65°C,
with a pH range of 6 to 7.
At full
stretch, I. cascadensis is, on average, about 40 micrometres long and 10 µm
wide, says Oliverio.
“This is
over 10 times the size of the average bacterial cell, and closer to the width
of a human white blood cell,” she says. In such a hot environment, the fire
amoeba is the top-order predator, feeding on thermophile bacteria, which are
far more common.
Bob Leung at Monash University, Australia,
says the discovery means he will have to rewrite his lectures on extremophiles.
Source:
James Woodford 2026 Fire amoeba breaks heat tolerance record for complex life | New Scientist 22 September
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