For the first time, scientists have found complex, multicelled creatures living a mile and more below the planet’s surface – raising new possibilities about both the spread of life on Earth and potential subsurface life on other planets and moons.
Nicknamed “worms from hell,” the nematodes, or roundworms, were found in several gold mines in South Africa, where researchers also have made breakthrough discoveries about deep subterranean single-cell life.
The two lead researchers, Gaetan Borgonie of the University of Ghent in Belgium and Tullis Onstott of Princeton University, said the discovery of creatures so far below ground, with nervous, digestive and reproductive systems, was akin to finding “Moby Dick in Lake Ontario.”
“This is telling us something brand new,” said Onstott, whose pioneering work in South Africa over the past decade has revolutionized the understanding of microbial life known generally as extremophiles, which live in places long believed to be uninhabitable.
“For a relatively complex creature like a nematode to penetrate that deep is simply remarkable,” he said.