New Type of Bacteria Found Buried in Antarctica's Lake Vostok

Russian scientists have discovered a new type of bacterial life from water samples taken from the ancient Lake Vostok that is below two miles of Antarctica ice.

A member of the research team confirms that the new bacteria they found in the water samples is not found anywhere else on Earth, reports RIA Novosti.

"After excluding all known contaminants we discovered bacterial DNA that does not match any known species listed in global databanks. We call it unidentified and 'unclassified' life," Sergey Bulat, a geneticist at the Saint Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics, was quoted as saying in RIA Novosti.

The water samples were retrieved from a lake that has been untouched for almost 14 million years. It is believed to have been covered by ice for several years. The lowest temperature recorded in the area is -122 F.

The scientists found seven samples of same species of bacteria from the water frozen on the head of the drill that was used to reach the lake. The lake was covered with a 3.5 kilometer-thick ice sheet.

The scientists confirm that on matching the DNA samples of the new bacteria with any known organism, they could find just 86 percent similarities. Finding similarity below 90 percent is sufficient enough to label it as a new species.

Bulat continues to state that, "If it were found on Mars, people would call it Martian DNA. But this is DNA from Earth."

While making an effort to construct a phylogenetic tree, the scientists could not fit the new Antarctic bacterium in any of the main categories of microorganism in its taxonomic domain. The phylogenetic tree, which is also referred to as phylogeny, depicts the lines of evolutionary decent of the species from a common ancestor.

The scientists will conduct more tests and will require more information before coming to a conclusion.