How deep, fried worms eat.The life of a giant tubeworm isn't easy. These worms, a species known as Riftia pachyptila, live more than a mile below the ocean surface, clinging to the chimney-like hydrothermal vent structures known as "black smokers". On a daily basis, Riftia dodges jets of a sulfide-rich fluid that can reach temperatures of 350 deg C and endures up to 300X sea-level atmospheric pressure. To complicate matters, Riftia has no mouth or digestive tract: it relies exclusively on an endosymbiotic bacterium to provide its energy.
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