Three essential things in life help living organisms survive; oxygen, eyesight, and the ability to hear. However, some extraordinary species survive and thrive being blind or deaf. As for no oxygen, there is only one known organism on Earth that scientists recently found that has no mitochondrial genome and doesn’t need to breathe, a parasite known as Henneguya salminicola.
No Oxygen
The H. salminicola looks like bluish sperm cells with two tails and a pair of oval eyes, but those aren’t eyes, they are non-venomous stinging cells which help the parasite latch onto a host. Unlike all other multicellular animals on Earth whose DNA has some respiratory genes, H. salminicola’s genome does not. A genomic and microscopic analysis of the species revealed that it has no mitochondrial genome, which is the crucial portion of DNA stored in an animal’s mitochondria that contains genes responsible for respiration.
No Eyes
Deep-sea creatures have evolved to be able to survive the harsh environment, including little to no sunlight, extremely high pressure, and freezing temperatures. While some have evolved their eyes to direct upwards to optimize light capture of the downwelling sunlight, some larger to increase the chance of photon capture, others simply don’t have eyes at all.
In 2012, researchers found eyeless shrimp, called Rimicaris hybisae, at the Von Damm vent field near the summit of an underwater mountain called Mount Dent. The shrimp have a light-sensing organ on their backs that allow them to detect low levels of illumination. Scientists believe that they use this low level of light to navigate around the hydrothermal vents of which they call their home.
However, these shrimp are not the only eyeless species; there are blind cavefish and other deep-sea creatures that don’t need to see. Even some animals on land have no use for eyes.
Star-nosed moles are nearly blind, and they use their incredible nose to navigate. Their star nose contains approximately 30,000 sense organs, making the mole a very efficient hunter. They are the world’s fastest eating mammal and one of a few creatures in the world that can smell underwater.
No Ears
Some animals don’t have ears, so they can’t hear as people do, but they still feel vibrations. For example, snakes and squid sense the motion generated by sound waves.
Squid have two sac-like organs known as statocysts near the base of their brains. Hair cells line both sacs and project into it, while a small grain of calcium carbonate, called a statolith, resides within the sac. When sound waves hit the animal, the hair cells rub against the statolith, bending the hair cells inside the sac. This generates electrical signals which are sent to the squid’s brain, telling it that it has detected a sound.
Sound waves cause vibrations to travel through the ground. These vibrations are transmitted in a snake’s jawbone, relaying a signal to the brain via their inner ear that’s connected to the jaw.
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