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Are there any known examples of animal life that don't depend on consuming other life (plant or animal)? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by ALostInquirer@lemm.ee to c/askbiologists@lemmy.world

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There's herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores, but is there any category of animal life that can sustain itself on anything else that isn't related to living organisms?

Is the only known example of this at the moment basically...Plants, give or take the particular species & how one may interpret the question of relation to other life?

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[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Chemotrophs are organisms that feed on chemicals not produced by other living things. The most famous example is the bacteria that live near underwater hydrothermal vents. These vents constantly replenish the chemicals that the bacteria feed on. The vents don't provide the sort of chemicals an animal could eat; only microorganisms are able to do the chemistry necessary to obtain energy from them. However, the giant tube worms found near hydrothermal vents are animals that sustain themselves by hosting a symbiotic colony of such microorganisms.

The very first living things were probably chemotrophs - photosynthesis evolved later. (Fun fact: humans are causing a mass extinction, but we're not the first living things to do that. The honor goes to the early photosynthetic organisms which filled Earth's atmosphere with poisonous gas.)

[–] ALostInquirer@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

However, the giant tube worms found near hydrothermal vents are animals that sustain themselves by hosting a symbiotic colony of such microorganisms.

That's wicked! This is rekindling my interest in microbiology that I'd almost forgotten. Also this is probably the closest example of what I was wondering about if I understand this right, in the usual unexpected way that biology begets.