Possible nearest living relatives to complex life found in seafloor mud
New microbe phylum carries signs of close kinship to animals, plants
VISITING THE RELATIVES At a deep spot (red dot) on the seafloor between Norway and Greenland not far from the hydrothermal vents at Loki’s Castle, mud has yielded DNA samples from microbes that may be the closest kin yet known to complex life.
A. Spang et al/Nature 2015
Cold mud from the seafloor has revealed signs of a new group of microbes that could be the nearest living relatives yet found to the domain of life that includes people and other creatures with fancy cell structures.