A first laboratory study of the heat-loving Pompeii worm reported in the open access journal PLOS ONE has confirmed that this deep-sea creature ranks among the most heat-tolerant animals.

The deep-sea polychaete worm Alvinella pompejana, commonly referred to as the Pompeii worm, was discovered in 1980 near the Galápagos Islands by French marine biologists Daniel Desbruyères and Lucien Laubier.

This species colonizes black smoker chimney walls at deep-sea vents and thrives at extreme temperature and pressure.

“Previous studies conducted only on-site have suggested the worms may be able to thrive at temperatures of 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius) or higher.”

“It is because several previous papers had come to this conclusion that Alvinella had become some sort of thermal exception in the scientific world,” explained senior author Dr Bruce Shillito from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France.

“Before these studies, it was long agreed that 50 degrees Celsius was the limit at which animal life survived.”

In the new study, Dr Shillito’s team used a technique that maintains the extreme pressure essential to the worms’ survival during their extraction, allowing them to bring Pompeii worms to their lab for testing.

The scientists found that prolonged exposure to the 50 – 55 degrees Celsius range induced lethal tissue damage, revealing that the worms did not experience long-term exposures to temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius in their natural environment.

However, the study shows that the temperature optimum for survival of Pompeii worms was still well over 42 degrees Celsius, ranking them among the most heat-loving animals known.

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Bibliographic information: Ravaux J et al. 2013. Thermal Limit for Metazoan Life in Question: In Vivo Heat Tolerance of the Pompeii Worm. PLoS ONE 8 (5): e64074; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0064074