Henneguya salminicola<\/a> is a very small parasite that lives inside certain fishes. At first sight, it might not seem like a big deal because it has less than 10 cells, it doesn\u2019t move on its own and it needs to live inside another organism to survive. However, it is a radical change in animal biology.<\/p>\nA special animal<\/p>\n
What\u2019s peculiar about Henneguya salminicola is that it doesn\u2019t have mitochondrial genes, this means that it lacks genetic instructions so that its cells use oxygen as an energy source. Every animal that has been known, mitochondria is the one in charge of processing oxygen and nutrients to generate this energy, but the Henneguya salminicola doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Basically, this animal does all its cycle of life without needing oxygen, something never seen before. This was something scientists couldn\u2019t believe and they have come up with some theories.<\/p>\n
Surviving without oxygen<\/p>\n
What\u2019s known about it is that it lives in marine fishes\u2019 muscles, where oxygen is almost nonexistent, and it\u2019s possible the Henneguya salminicola has evolved to adapt itself to that external environment.<\/p>\n
Since it\u2019s a parasite, it just directly takes nutrients from the organism it lives in and takes energy already processed by the fish\u2019s cells. Also, there\u2019s the theory of this animal having an unknown mechanism to produce the energy needed, without depending on oxygen nor mitochondria.<\/p>\n
Importance of this finding<\/p>\n
The Henneguya salminicola breaks one of the main principles of animal biology: the need for oxygen to live. So, this is the first evidence of an animal capable of living without it because its DNA confirmed it doesn\u2019t have any mitochondrial genetic material.<\/p>\n
This proves it can\u2019t breathe in a traditional way, the one we are familiar with, but it does get the energy from other ways that haven\u2019t been clarified yet.<\/p>\n
Is this meaningful for the future?<\/p>\n
Well, this finding makes scientists rethink many ideas about life. If the Henneguya salminicola can live without oxygen, it means life can adapt to conditions way more different than they thought. So, this discovery opens a window to many new questions: could exist something similar? What other ways of life could live in extreme places like the seabed?<\/p>\n
This has been relevant for astrobiology, the science studying the possibility of life out of Earth. So, another question is set out about animals living without oxygen on other planets, with different atmospheres. If there is one on Earth, why wouldn\u2019t the presence of this animal or a similar one that doesn\u2019t need oxygen to live possible in other parts of the universe?<\/p>\n
I mean, this might seem crazy but the Henneguya salminicola has already broken scientific rules showing life can be more flexible and stranger than we can imagine. So, from now on, we can expect almost anything from scientific research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s an animal that can live without oxygen, can you believe that?\u00a0 For a long time, scientists maintained…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-17142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114751443026506906","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}