Researchers supported in part by the Exobiology & Evolutionary Biology element of the NASA Astrobiology Program have isolated a new ‘acid-loving’ microorganisms from cyanobacterial microbial mats associated with Octopus Spring in Yellowstone. Chloracidobacterium thermophilum strain B is an anoxygenic photoheterotroph, a member of the phylum Acidobacteria, and moderately thermophilic.

The paper, “Chloracidobacterium thermophilum gen. nov., sp. nov.: an anoxygenic microaerophilic chlorophotoheterotrophic acidobacterium,” was published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.