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 |