Experts from the University of British Columbia managed to find an organism, the existence of which has been known for a long time, but it could not be detected. "Elusive" became the simplest, called diplonemid.
About 10 years ago, Diplonemids were discovered. It was possible to see them thanks to the discovery of a single gene isolated from marine samples. For a long time, scientists ignored these protozoa, until they found out that a huge number of them live in ocean waters.
At the same time, before the discovery of specialists from the University of British Columbia, diplonemid was never found in natural habitat.
These protozoa feed on algae and other microscopic organisms. The number of diplonemids in the waters of the world's oceans can reach several trillion. They most likely play an important role in marine ecosystems.
The first photographs of these protozoa were made by zoologists who took samples in deep waters off the coast of California. It turned out that diplonemids include various species with a relatively large genome, most of which is formed by junk DNA.
Dotsenko Alexander