Was ein hübsches Tierchen

Was ein hübsches Tierchen

Via Thomas Gutsche Thomas Gutsche

Originally shared by Spherical Trigonometry

Say hello to the most heat tolerant member of the higher order life forms, it survives in nearly boiling water and even temps reaching 221 F for a short time.
Try not to fall in love with this adorable face (jk!).
Alvinella pompejana, the Pompeii worm, is an extremophile found only at hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean, discovered in the early 1980s off the Galápagos Islands by French marine biologists. It beat out the Sahara desert ant for heat tolerance (and later the water bear) which formerly held the record at 131 F .
The worm's rear end sits in water as hot as 176 F, while its gill-covered head pokes out of the worm's tube home, resting in much cooler water, only about 72F. The worm also displays a remarkably broad temperature gradient along its hairy body. It can survive a bath well over 200 F (as in BOILING) :-O
The Pompeii worm makes paper-like tube colonies attached to hydrothermal vent chimneys. While the very hottest water shoots out the top of the chimneys, these structures are so porous that hot water also seeps out the chimney sides and through the worm's tube home. These critters are about 5 inches long.