Caenorhabditis elegans
The world traveller
The famous laboratory worm is also a wild explorer of short-lived, bacteria-rich places such as rotting fruit and compost. In the lab these nematodes eat bacteria growing on agar plates. The larger worm is a hermaphrodite and the smaller worm is a male.
⚥ hermaphrodite + ♂ rare male
Rotting plants & compost
Tiny surpriseN2 came from mushroom compost near Bristol. C. elegans can be frozen alive in a protective solution and revived after thawing. This is the reason for its cryo-vial jetpack. An N2 sample that was frozen around 1968 gave rise to an ancestral laboratory stock used in labs around the world.