Alvinellidae

The Alvinellidae are a family of small, deep-sea polychaete worms endemic to hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean. Belonging to the order Terebellida, the family contains two genera, Alvinella and Paralvinella; the former genus contains two valid species and the latter eight. Members of the family are termed alvinellids.

Alvinellidae
Paralvinella sulfincola
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Annelida
Class:
Polychaeta
Subclass:
Palpata
Order:
Canalipalpata
Suborder:
Terebellida
Family:
Alvinellidae

Desbruyères & Laubier, 1986
Genera

Alvinella
Paralvinella

The family was first described in 1979 after discoveries made off the Galápagos Islands by the crew of the DSV Alvin. The ship subsequently lent its name to the family and genera within it.

The worms build mucus tubes and extend red feathery gills. Members of the Alvinellidae are noted for their exceptional heat tolerance: one species, the Pompeii worm (Alvinella pompejana), is thought to be the most heat-tolerant complex organism on Earth. Mitochondria start to break down at temperatures of 122–131 °F (50–55 °C), apparently providing an upper limit for eukaryotes. Under laboratory conditions, in a pressurized aquarium with a heat gradient, worms of the species Paralvinella sulfincola, chose water heated to 122 °F (50 °C) and made brief forays into water as hot as 131 °F (55 °C).[1] Unlike other (chemosynthetic) vent-dwelling worms, alvinellid worms possess a digestive tract. However, they do rely on an episymbiotic relationship with thermophilic bacteria; hair-like growths of the bacteria living on the worm's back are thought to offer thermal protection to the worm.

Family Alvinellidae
  • Genus Alvinella
    • Species Alvinella caudata
    • Species Alvinella pompejana - Pompeii worm
  • Genus Paralvinella
    • Species Paralvinella bactericola
    • Species Paralvinella fijiensis
    • Species Paralvinella grasslei
    • Species Paralvinella hessleri
    • Species Paralvinella palmiformis
    • Species Paralvinella pandorae
    • Species Paralvinella sulfincola
    • Species Paralvinella unidentata
gollark: > multiprocessing.pool objects have internal resources that need to be properly managed (like any other resource) by using the pool as a context manager or by calling close() and terminate() manually. Failure to do this can lead to the process hanging on finalization.> Note that is not correct to rely on the garbage colletor to destroy the pool as CPython does not assure that the finalizer of the pool will be called (see object.__del__() for more information).Great abstraction there, Python. Really great.
gollark: No, I mean I was reading from underneath the line it highlighted, which was the POST documentation.
gollark: Oh, never mind, the link was just being confusing.
gollark: Why is there a body argument for *GET* requests?
gollark: Never mind, I figured it out by looking at one of my other programs.

References
  1. CNN.com "Study finds worms thriving in hot-water" - 14 April 2006
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.