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A Startling Microbe Discovery Just Revealed a Whole New Branch of Our Tree of Life
Microscopic organisms found in dirt collected from a hike through Nova Scotia mean we're going to have to add another branch to the tree of life. The strange organisms simply don't fit into the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, or any other kingdom we've classified up until now. The tiny critters in question represent two species of the group of microbes called hemimastigotes, and based on a detailed genetic analysis, one of them has never been spotted before.
According to the team of researchers from Dalhousie University in Canada, the two species are eukaryotes (with complex cells, like humans), and protists (outside the animal, plant, and fungi kingdoms). But they don't fit the patterns of the existing 10 kingdoms that make up the Eukaryota domain. "This discovery literally redraws our branch of the tree of life at one of its deepest points," says one of the researchers, Alastair Simpson. "It opens a new door to understanding the evolution of complex cells – and their ancient origins – back well before animals and plants emerged on Earth."
Hemimastigophora is a novel supra-kingdom-level lineage of eukaryotes (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0708-8) (DX)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @10:28PM
Yes it is possible. With a billions of years of natural selection (or just good fortune) ending up with the survivors we know about, there could be just as many that never got far enough to leave a fossil record we will discover.
The fact that these little buggers are still alive means there could be more to be discovered. It's unknown which supercontinent existed when some of the previous forms of life emerged, so its impossible to guess where in the world (on land, in the Earth's crust, or under water) the fossils might be.