Paralvinella hessleri is a bright-yellow worm living in the hottest parts of hydrothermal vents in the Okinawa Trough. The vent fluids are mineral-rich and carry high levels of toxic sulfide and arsenic. The worm accumulates microscopic arsenic particles on its outer skin cells and internal organs. Those arsenic particles react with sulfide from the vent to form microscopic clumps of orpiment, creating a yellow orpiment armour that protects the worm from the toxic environment. Orpiment is an arsenic sulfide mineral historically used as a bright yellow pigment. The mechanism of arsenic accumulation and mineral formation remains unknown.
Paralvinella hessleri accumulates microscopic particles of arsenic on its outer skin, which reacts with sulfide to form a microscopic armour of yellow orpiment. A bright-yellow worm that lives in deep-sea hydrothermal vents is the first known animal to create orpiment, a brilliant but toxic mineral used by artists from antiquity until the nineteenth century. The findings were published in PLoS Biology this week.
The worm (Paralvinella hessleri) is the only creature to inhabit the hottest part of deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the Okinawa Trough in the western Pacific Ocean. The hot, mineral-rich water that shoots up from the sea floor contains high levels of toxic sulfide and arsenic. Researchers found that the worm accumulates microscopic particles of arsenic on its outer skin cells as well as along its internal organs.
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