Marine worms have been discovered in the Great Salt Lake
Scientists are investigating how marine worms were able to colonize the Great Salt Lake in the U.S. state of Utah—one of the harshest bodies of water on the planet. Due to its extremely high salt concentration, it was long believed that only a few species of organisms could survive there, including brine shrimp and flies. The discovery of new inhabitants calls into question previous assumptions about the biodiversity of this unique environment.
The new species has been officially named Diplolaimelloides woaabi. This creature is barely one and a half millimeters long, yet its modest size hides a huge scientific mystery. The head of the research team, Michael Werner, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology, decided to consult with the elders of the Northwest Shoshone Indian tribe—whose ancestors have lived on these lands since time immemorial—before registering the name. It was the leaders of the indigenous people who suggested the word Wo’aabi, which in their language simply means “worm.”
In general, nematodes are considered one of the most widespread organisms on Earth, as science knows of over a quarter of a million species—from Arctic glaciers to deep-sea ocean trenches. Despite this ubiquity, they had never been found in the Great Salt Lake itself before. Julie Jung changed that when she stumbled upon the first specimens during a routine field expedition by kayak and bicycle.
The worms had settled inside so-called microbiolites. These are specific hard mounds of minerals and algae, similar to underwater reefs, that cover the lake bottom and support the entire local food chain. It took scientists three years of painstaking laboratory work to definitively confirm the uniqueness of the discovery. The animals were studied using scanning electron microscopy and DNA sequencing, which allowed researchers to observe microscopic eye spots, fused lips, a funnel-shaped mouth, and specific bristles. In addition, genetic tests suggest that a second, as-yet-undescribed species of nematode may also be hiding at the bottom of the lake.
The appearance of this creature in high-altitude Utah, cut off from the nearest ocean by thirteen hundred kilometers of land, has frankly baffled the scientific community. For now, researchers are trying to reconcile two completely incompatible hypotheses.
On the one hand, Professor Byron Adams leans toward an evolutionary theory from the distant past. In his view, nematodes inhabited these shores as far back as the age of the dinosaurs, when an ancient sea split North America in two. River currents that flowed into the ocean directly through what is now Utah provided an ideal home for these microorganisms.
When tectonic processes raised the Colorado Plateau and formed the enclosed Great Basin, the tiny creatures found themselves trapped. If this hypothesis is correct, it would mean that the worms possess extraordinary resilience, as they had to survive the region’s drastic desalination some 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, when the massive freshwater Lake Bonneville flooded the area.
The second theory is much more mundane, placing all the blame on bird migration routes. Every year, millions of birds pass through the Great Salt Lake. It is quite likely that migratory birds simply carried microscopic invertebrates on their feathers or in the dried mud that stuck to their feet while resting at other salt lakes around the world.
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