In a deep, dark, difficult environment underneath the ocean with a very high temperature and high pressure, there are reportedly traces of answers about evolution one might discover. Scientists found microorganisms that show a missing link in evolution of life on Earth, including us.

Researchers recovered a group of microorganisms called Lokiarchaeota, or Loki, living in an ocean floor with distant, hostile environment and a very cold temperature underneath the ocean of about 2.35km. Loki was found in a seafloor near the Loki's Castle, a hydrothermal vent system.

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According to Times Live, an important feature of the scientific breakthrough researchers had found out was that Loki, a group of single-celled organisms, are mark of missing link in the evolution of complex cells, units that build up eukaryotes or large group of organisms like fungi, plants and animals, in which humans are included. The discovery of this group of microorganism might have important answers to life's evolution on Earth.

The discovery of Lokiarchaeota was published in an international science weekly journal Nature. Thijs Ettema, an evolutionary microbiologist from Uppsala University, said that Loki represented a missing piece of the evolutionary puzzle from simple to complex cells. Loki are part of Achaea, a group of simple-cell microorganism, but they shared features of eukaryotes.

The New York Times noted that by examining the DNA of Loki, scientists discovered they are closely associated with eukaryotes and much more complex than any other species in Archaea, including bacteria. But they remain less complex as the eukaryotes.

The team is now trying to imitate an environment suitable for Loki, a condition with a very cold temperature and high pressure where these microorganisms will survive and develop. The difficulty of this scientific breakthrough for the team is that the microorganisms die off before they can study much about Loki. The need for this kind of environment for them is essential to the group of scientists to figure out and discover more about them, The New York Times added.

It is said that there are other inhospitable parts under the ocean, and it is possible that there are also other microorganisms that carry ancestral discoveries about how people evolve on Earth.

TagsLokiarchaeota, Missing link, Loki, complex cells, Archaea, Human evolution, evolution