Utah researchers have confirmed that a tiny roundworm, unknown to science until now, is thriving in the Great Salt Lake, one of the harshest aquatic environments on the planet. The discovery means that only three types of animals are currently known to withstand the lake’s extreme salinity, reshaping how biologists understand this iconic body of water. It also turns a place often dismissed as lifeless into a frontline laboratory for watching evolution and environmental change in real time.
The new species, a nematode formally named Diplolaimelloides woaabi, lives in close association with microbial structures on the lakebed and appears to be found nowhere else on Earth. Its emergence from the sediments of Utah’s inland sea is forcing scientists to revisit long‑held assumptions about what can survive in brine that is saltier than the ocean and fluctuating rapidly as the lake shrinks.
The harsh world of the Great Salt Lake
The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemispher, a remnant of ancient Lake Bonneville that now sits in a closed basin with no outlet to the sea. As water evaporates, salts concentrate, creating brine that can reach several times the salinity of the ocean and form stark gradients from fresher inflows to hypersaline bays. Those conditions, combined with fluctuating water levels and dust‑laden shorelines, have made the lake a symbol of both ecological richness and environmental stress in the interior West.
Despite its austere reputation, the Great Salt Lake supports a complex web of life built around microbes, brine shrimp and brine flies, and it anchors one of the most important migratory bird stopovers in North America. Educational guides that track the system across the seasons describe how shorebirds such as American avocets and Wilson’s phalaropes descend on the lake in late summer to gorge on brine shrimp cysts, while some wetland areas are closed through early September so birds can raise their young without disturbance, before hunting seasons begin in October in coordination with state wildlife managers, according to Great Salt Lake. That seasonal choreography depends on a food chain that is now being reinterpreted in light of the nematode discovery.
From “only two species” to a third survivor
For years, public discussion of the lake’s biology often boiled down to a stark claim: only two animal groups, brine shrimp and brine flies, could survive in its most saline waters. That framing was popular enough that when a radio host identified as KELLY asked about it, a researcher responded with a wry “hold my Nalgene,” before explaining that Jung and her colleagues were already probing the sediments for other life, as recounted in an interview featuring KELLY and the work of Jung and her team. That search has now paid off, and the old “two species” shorthand no longer holds.
Scientists have identified a brand‑new nematode that can tolerate the lake’s brine, making it only the third animal group known to Only the Third to Survive There. Earlier work by Utah biologists had already hinted that roundworms might be present, after they found tiny nematodes living in reef‑like microbialites that cover roughly a fifth of the lakebed, according to a report on Roundworms and the. The formal description of Diplolaimelloides woaabi confirms that suspicion and elevates nematodes to equal billing with brine shrimp and brine flies in the lake’s roster of animal survivors.
A never‑before‑seen creature with a singular address
The newly identified species, Diplolaimelloides, is a microscopic roundworm that lives in the sediments and microbial structures of Utah’s inland sea. Researchers describe it as a never‑before‑seen animal that had eluded detection despite decades of work on the lake’s chemistry and invertebrates, a gap that underscores how much biodiversity can hide in plain sight until someone looks closely at the mud. A detailed profile notes that the newly identified species, Diplolaimelloides woaabi, was outlined in a study released in December and suggests that its presence hints at more biodiversity than previously thought in the Great Salt Lake, according to an analysis of Diplolaimelloides.
Researchers emphasize that this worm appears to be endemic, meaning it may exist nowhere else on Earth, a status that raises the stakes for the lake’s conservation. One account describes the Great Salt Lake as a Utah lake that houses a creature that “should not be here,” noting that this is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and that the species is endemic to it, with researchers tying its fate to the microbes on the lakebed, as detailed in a report on the Western Hemisphere. That singular address makes the worm both a scientific curiosity and a conservation priority.
How scientists found Diplolaimelloides woaabi
The path to this discovery began with a systematic effort by Utah researchers to probe the lake’s sediments and microbialites for hidden life. A university account describes how a post‑doctoral researcher in the Werner lab at the School of Biological Sciences examined nematodes recovered from the lake’s reef‑like structures, resulting in a significant discovery that the Great Salt Lake ecosystem had just become more interesting, as summarized in a feature that highlights the work of Above the Post‑doctoral researcher and the Werner group. Those early samples set the stage for a more targeted campaign to map nematode diversity across different salinity zones.
Field teams collected sediment from multiple sites on the Great Salt Lake, including areas near the shoreline and deeper basins, then brought the material back to the lab to isolate and culture any worms present. One report notes that scientists had long suspected nematodes might be present but had never definitively documented them until this work, and that the new species was eventually described as part of a broader effort to understand how life persists in the lake’s reef‑like microbialites, according to the account of Scientists. The formal naming of Diplolaimelloides woaabi, which honors Indigenous heritage connected to the lake, capped a multi‑year investigation that turned a hunch into a taxonomic milestone.
What the new worm reveals about a stressed ecosystem
Diplolaimelloides woaabi is more than a curiosity, it is a living sensor for the health of a lake that is shrinking and becoming saltier as upstream water is diverted and drought persists. Scientists have identified a brand‑new nematode in the Great Salt Lake and argue that its physiology and population trends could help track the lake’s health as conditions rapidly change, according to a synthesis that describes The First Discovery and how it reframes the ecosystem. Because nematodes respond quickly to shifts in salinity, oxygen and microbial communities, they can serve as early warning indicators long before larger animals disappear.
The discovery also deepens the story of how the lake connects to human communities and cultural history. One account notes that Utah researchers discovered a new species in the Great Salt Lake and gave it a name that reflects the lake’s native history, linking the worm to the ancestral lands of Indigenous nations whose stories include the lake, as described in a feature on Great Salt Lake and Utah. Another report recounts how Jung and her colleagues spoke with leaders of the Northwest Band of the Shoshone Nation, whose ancestral lands include the lake, as they worked to understand how this mysterious animal fits into a broader narrative of environmental change and cultural continuity, according to an interview that highlights Jung and the Northwest Band of the Shoshone Nation.
Supporting sources: newly discovered species, Scientists discovered never-before-seen.
More from Morning Overview