snottite

English

WOTD – 2 June 2024

Etymology

Snottites in the Cueva de Villa Luz (Villa Luz Cave) in Tabasco, Mexico.

Blend of snot (“mucus, especially nasal mucus”) +‎ stalactite, possibly coined by James A. Pisarowicz in unpublished field notes of an exploration of the Villa Luz Cave in Tabasco, Mexico, in 1988.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsnɒtaɪt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsnɑtaɪt/
• Hyphenation: snot‧tite

Noun

snottite (plural snottites)

1. (bacteriology) A colony of single-celled extremophilic bacteria that hangs in a sheet (having the consistency of snot or nasal mucus) from the ceilings of some caves like stalactites. [from late 20th c.]

   Synonym: snoticle

   • 1999, Michael Ray Taylor, “April 18, 1998”, in Dark Life: Martian Nanobacteria, Rock-eating Cave Bugs, and Other Extreme Organisms of Inner Earth and Outer Space, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, →ISBN, pages 252–253:

     We worked our way past the gypsum bank to a small, snottite-laden room around a corner from it. A few days earlier, Martin and his crew had filmed Diana sampling a snottite here as she discussed the strangeness of multiple life forms adapting to such an extremely acidic microenvironment. The snottites held perhaps hundreds of strange microbial species wrapped in gypsum crystals, and also small spiders and gnats that ranged freely up and down them, appearing wholly unperturbed by the acid.

   • 1999 April, Louise D. Hose, James A. Pisarowicz, “Cueva de Villa Luz, Tabasco, Mexico: Reconnaissance Study of an Active Sulfur Spring Cave and Ecosystem”, in Louise D. Hose, editor, Journal of Cave and Karst Studies: The National Speleological Society Bulletin‎^[2], volume 61, number 1, Huntsville, Ala.: National Speleological Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-03-02, pages 14 and 15:

     [Page 14, column 1] This expedition also began investigating the acidity of drips from snottites in the cave. […] [Page 15, column 2] Inspection revealed that the "snottites" are communities of microbes similar to microbial mats commonly associated with sulfur-rich surface springs, but these colonies are suspended vertically.

   • 2011 June 30, Daniel S. Jones [et al.], “Community Genomic Analysis of an Extremely Acidophilic Sulfur-oxidizing Biofilm”, in The ISME Journal: Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial Ecology‎^[3], volume 6, number 1, London: Nature Publishing Group, published January 2012, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-05-11, abstract, page 158:

     Highly acidic (pH 0–1) biofilms, known as ‘snottites’, form on the walls and ceilings of hydrogen sulfide-rich caves. […] Snottites from the Frasassi cave system (Italy) are dominated (>70% of cells) by Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans, with smaller populations including an archaeon in the uncultivated ‘G-plasma’ clade of Thermoplasmatales (>15%) and a bacterium in the Acidimicrobiaceae family (>5%). […] Based on combined metagenomic, molecular and geochemical evidence, we suggest that Acidithiobacillus is the snottite architect and main primary producer, and that snottite morphology and distributions in the cave environment are directly related to the supply of C, N and energy substrates from the cave atmosphere.

Translations

colony of bacteria that hangs in a sheet from the ceilings of some caves

• Catalan: snottite ?
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 洞穴涕石 (dòngxúetìshí)

• Dutch: snottiet ?
• Finnish: snottiitti
• French: snottite ?
• German: Snottit ?
• Indonesian: snottit
• Macedonian: please add this translation if you can

Further reading

• snottite on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• totients