Find the oldest living body in the world

After two decades of studying a type of algae-eating microorganisms living in a lake in Norway, scientists on April 26 claim that it is one of the oldest living organisms in the world and is a distant relative. most of humans.

AFP news agency quoted the researchers as saying that this single-celled organism evolved about 1 billion years ago and does not belong to any kind of living organism, including animals, plants, parasitic plants, fungi or algae. .

Collodictyon

'We have found an unknown branch of phylogenetic trees (tree of live) that lives in this lake. So far we have not known any other living organism that grows closer to the roots of phylogenetic plants than this species, " said researcher Kamran Shalchian-Tabrizi at Oslo University. Knowing this new body type is named Collodictyon.

Scientists believe this finding could help provide a deep understanding of life on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago.

Collodictyon lives in the mire of a small lake 30km south of Oslo.

It has 4 whips, is a paddle-like part that pushes the body forward, and can only be observed with a microscope with a body length of 30-50 micrometers (1 micron is one millionth of a meter) .

Reference: Wired