Bathybius haeckelii

Bathybius was discovered in the 19th century in samples from the Atlantic seabed substance that was described in 1868 by Thomas Henry Huxley as primeval creatures. Later it turned out that it had been in this description a mistake. Since Bathybius but a special role in the evolutionary history of life was attributed by some biologists, there were heated discussions, which are the history of science to date of interest.

Ernst Haeckel had taken theory of the origin of primitive life forms from a kind of " primordial slime " in the wake of Darwin 's theory of evolution Lorenz Oken. He postulated the existence of living beings, which consisted of only a single substance, and thus formed the basis of life. These creatures were called Monera. 1868 examined the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley soil samples from the Atlantic, which was ten years earlier taken when laying the first transatlantic cable, and had been preserved in alcohol. Huxley found in the samples a gelatinous, homogeneous, diffuse mass, were embedded in the coccoliths. Huxley identified this mass as a species of Monera and renamed it in honor of Haeckel Bathybius Haeckelii. As a result, findings were repeated by Bathybius known, including by Charles Wyville Thomson. Haeckel imagined the whole ocean floor would be covered with this primordial slime.

During the Challenger expedition of the HMS Challenger from 1872 to 1876, which were also Thomson was involved, was trying to find living Bathybius, but without success. Bathybius only occurred when samples preserved in alcohol. The researchers of the Challenger finally found that Bathybius was nothing other than colloidal precipitated calcium sulfate. This reaction occurs upon addition of alcohol.

Huxley accepted this finding and saw his error. Haeckel did thus heavier and longer still held firmly to the primordial slime. The history of science has studied since the 1970s experiment with the phenomenon Bathybius. Today Bathybius is rated as understandable mistake, it solved but apparently several problems: it was the most primitive form of life, the evolutionary precursor for all living beings, the elementary unit of the cytology, the main component of marine sediments ( the coccoliths, which are now assigned to other living things ), as well as a source of food for higher organisms in the nutrient-poor deep sea. With the removal of the existence of Bathybius all these questions were unsolved again. The discovery of Bathybius inspired extensive research that led to new insights and ultimately to the recognition of error.