Herminiimonas glaciei

Herminiimonas glaciei is a species of ultramicrobacterium in the family Oxalobacteraceae. These small gram-negative cells have a variable number of long flagella at the ends and sides of their rod-shaped bodies. With dimensions of 0.5–0.9 by 0.3–0.4 μm, H. glaciei is roughly 10 to 50 times smaller than Escherichia coli. Discovered in 2009, the species (as strain UMB49^T) was isolated from 120,000 years old glacial ice, 3,042 metres (1.9 mi) deep, from Greenland. It was revived after a long-term incubation—seven months of oxygen-free growth at 2 °C, followed by growth on agar plates at 5 °C for almost five months. DNA sequence analysis suggests that with a sequence similarity of 99.6%, H. glaciei is most closely related to H. saxobsidens, a species originally isolated from lichen-colonized rock. Loveland-Curtze, head of the team of scientists from Pennsylvania State University who found the species, speculates that it may offer insight into the existence of organisms in extraterrestrial habitats.