You'd think a lake so salty it makes the ocean look like tap water would be a dead zone. But the Great Salt Lake in Utah just revealed a surprise: microscopic worms thriving where almost nothing else can survive.

A Worm That Shouldn't Exist

In January 2026, scientists from the University of Utah announced they'd found a brand-new species of nematode worm living in the Great Salt Lake. They named it Diplolaimelloides woaabi, with "Wo'aabi" being an Indigenous word for "worm" suggested by Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation tribal elders.

This discovery matters because it makes nematodes only the third animal group known to survive the lake's brutal conditions. The other two—brine shrimp and brine flies—have been famous residents for decades. Finding a third was completely unexpected.

The worms are tiny, smaller than a millimeter. But their existence raises fascinating questions about how life adapts to extreme environments and where these creatures came from in the first place.

The Hunt for Hidden Life

Julie Jung, now an assistant professor at Weber State University, led the field expeditions in 2022 that first uncovered the nematodes. She traveled across the lake by kayak and bicycle, collecting samples from the lakebed. What she found looked promising, but confirming a new species takes time.

It took three years of additional work to taxonomically verify that these worms were indeed something science had never seen before. Michael Werner, a biology professor at the University of Utah, led the research team. Byron Adams, a nematologist from Brigham Young University, joined as a coauthor. Even an undergraduate researcher named Thomas Murray played a key role, and he's now helping investigate whether there might be a second unknown species hiding in the samples.

The research appeared in the November 2025 issue of the Journal of Nematology. Multiple organizations funded the work, including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Living on the Edge

The Great Salt Lake sits about 4,200 feet above sea level and roughly 800 miles from the nearest ocean. Its water is far saltier than seawater. Most organisms can't handle that level of salt—it destroys their cells and disrupts their basic biology.

But these nematodes found a way. They live inside microbialites, which are hardened, mound-like structures on the lakebed formed by microbial communities. Specifically, the worms concentrate in the top few centimeters of algal mats coating these structures. Below that thin layer, they're absent.

The worms feed on bacteria that thrive in these mats. They're part of a surprisingly complex microscopic ecosystem that exists in one of Earth's harshest environments.

The Mystery of Their Origin

How did these worms end up in a landlocked salt lake in Utah? Scientists have two competing theories, and both are wild.

The first hypothesis suggests they've been there since the Cretaceous Period, about 100 million years ago. Back then, Utah sat on the shoreline of a vast inland sea that split North America in two. If this theory is correct, the nematodes have been hanging on through dramatic environmental changes for an almost unimaginable length of time.

The second theory proposes that migratory birds transported them from South American saline lakes. Birds regularly fly between continents, and microscopic organisms can hitch rides on their feathers or feet.

Here's what makes this puzzle even more interesting: between 20,000 and 30,000 years ago, the region was covered by Lake Bonneville, a massive freshwater lake. If the nematodes were already there, they would have survived through at least one dramatic shift from salt water to fresh water and back again. Possibly multiple times.

Strange Sex Ratios and Hidden Relatives

When researchers examined field samples, they noticed something odd. Female nematodes vastly outnumbered males—less than 1% of the worms collected were male.

But when they cultured the same worms in the lab, males made up about 50% of the population. Something about the lake environment itself seems to affect the sex ratio, though scientists don't yet understand what.

Genetic evidence hints at another surprise: there might be a second, previously unknown nematode species mixed in with the collected samples. Thomas Murray is now sampling different regions of the lake to investigate this possibility.

Why Nematodes Matter

You've probably never thought much about nematodes, but they're everywhere. Scientists have identified more than 250,000 species so far, and there are likely millions more waiting to be discovered.

About 80% of animal life in terrestrial soils consists of nematodes. On the ocean floor, roughly 90% of animals are nematodes. They're the hidden majority of animal life on Earth.

Scientists use nematodes as bioindicators—organisms whose populations signal changes in environmental conditions. Shifts in nematode communities can reveal changes in water quality, salinity, or sediment chemistry before those changes become obvious through other means.

Until 2022, no nematodes had been definitively documented in the Great Salt Lake. Now we know they're there, and they appear to be endemic—existing nowhere else on Earth.

The Bigger Picture

The Diplolaimelloides woaabi discovery joins a growing catalog of extremophiles that challenge our understanding of life's limits. Consider the Pompeii worm, which lives near deep-sea hydrothermal vents and survives temperatures around 120°C. Most animals can't cope with anything over 40°C.

These extreme survivors aren't just biological curiosities. They teach us about the fundamental mechanisms life uses to persist under stress. That knowledge has practical applications in medicine, biotechnology, and even the search for life on other planets.

The worms belong to the family Monhysteridae, an ancient group known for surviving extreme conditions. The genus Diplolaimelloides typically lives in coastal marine and brackish waters. Only one other member of this genus lives outside coastal regions—in eastern Mongolia, another landlocked location far from the sea.

What Comes Next

The Great Salt Lake has been shrinking for years due to drought and water diversions. As water levels drop, salinity increases even further. Understanding what lives in the lake now helps scientists predict what might survive—or disappear—as conditions continue to change.

The discovery of Diplolaimelloides woaabi reminds us how much we still don't know about life on our own planet. A microscopic worm living in one of North America's most studied extreme environments went unnoticed until 2022. What else are we missing?

These tiny worms survived in conditions that would kill most organisms. They might have been there for 100 million years, or they might be recent arrivals. Either way, they're thriving in a place that looks like a wasteland.

Life, it turns out, is far more stubborn and creative than we give it credit for.