Extremes, and the organisms who love them

Check out our handy table of the many different types of extremophiles

Type of extremophile	The conditions they like	Example
Acidophiles	Extremely low pH levels	Alicyclobacillus, which can grow in acidic fruit juices and survive pasteurisation
Alkaliphiles	Extremely high pH levels	Microcystis, found in Mono Lake, California
Barophiles	Extreme pressure	Ocean-dwelling Halomonas salaria, which needs pressures 1,000 times greater than standard atmospheric pressure
Endoliths	Extreme rockiness	Desulfotomaculum, found four kilometres down in rock at the bottom of a South African gold mine
Halophiles	Extreme saltiness	Wallemia ichthyophaga, the most halophilic fungus known to exist – in fact it cannot grow without salt
Psychrophiles	Extreme cold	Chryseobacterium greenlandensis, which can survive at depths of over three kilometres inside a Greenland glacier
Radioresistant microbes	Extreme radiation	Thermococcus gammatolerans, which can tolerate more than 3,000 times the radiation that would kill a human
Thermophiles	Extreme heat	Pyrococcus furiosus, which can withstand temperatures of 100°C and was first found near a volcano in Italy
Xerophiles	Extreme dryness	Wallemia sebi, which can spoil even dried fruit

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About this resource

This resource was first published in ‘Space Biology’ in June 2015.

Topics:: Microbiology, Ecology and environment
Issue:: Space Biology
Education levels:: 16–19, Continuing professional development