A single-celled organism squirming about in the searing waters of California's Lassen Volcanic National Park has just set a record for heat tolerance.
The newly named Incendiamoeba cascadensis – meaning "fire amoeba from the Cascades", as described in a preprint on bioRxiv – grows and divides at temperatures up to 63 degrees Celsius (145 Fahrenheit), the highest known temperature for a eukaryotic organism.
Moreover, it doesn't start growing until temperatures reach at least 42 degrees Celsius. This makes it an obligate thermophile – a creature that requires conditions far hotter than most eu