Discovered the most elusive organism on Earth
Zoologists from the University of British Columbia first spotted the body, the existence of which was known, but he has long remained elusive is the simplest diplonemids (diplonemid). The achievement of scientists, reports Gizmodo.
Diplomacy — one of the most numerous planktonic organisms, were discovered about ten years ago, thanks to the discovery of a single gene isolated from marine samples.
They had long been ignored by biologists, until it became clear that they are extremely common in the ocean. However, until now diplonemids was not caught and was not observed in their natural habitat.
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First photos of simple managed to make the zoologists, gathered samples in the deep waters off the coast of California. It turned out that diplonemids include a variety of species with relatively large genome, most of which formed junk DNA. They are characterized by rapid metabolism and source of food are algae and other microscopic organisms.
According to scientists, the number of diplonemids may reach trillion. It is likely that these protozoa play an important role in marine ecosystems.
Junk or non-coding DNA called DNA, whose functions are not yet established. It includes sequence and its introns are sections between genes and repeats.