First Multicellular Organisms Found to Live an Oxygen-Free Life

  Researchers in the Polytechnic University of Marche in Ancona, Italy have found three new species in the oxygen-free pits of the Mediterranean Sea. Before this astounding discovery, the only organisms known to be capable of living without oxygen were bacteria an viruses.
  Unlike all previously discovered species, these strange creatures don`t use mitochondria, the cellular organelle than converts sugar and oxygen into water, CO2 and energy to power their cells. These organisms use an organelle much like the hydrogenosome, a cellular component used by certain microbes to produce energy using complex enzymatic reactions.
  These unnamed organisms all belong to the phylum Loricifera are less than 0.04 inches long. This is not the first time scientists have discovered organisms in anoxic environment, but previous discoveries needed to surface for oxygen while these creatures do not. How these creatures evolved and what else is down there remains to be seen.