An American researcher found new forms of life in a blue hole in Abaco, which he believes may provide clues to how life evolved.
Dr. Thomas Iliffe, a marine biology professor at Texas A&M University,  said he's made a number of discoveries in the 20 years that he has been studying blue holes in The Bahamas.
On a recent excursion with five other researchers, Dr. Iliffe and his team found strange forms of bacteria - which he said point to the evolution of life.
"Mostly I've been studying the higher life forms, mostly crustaceans which are relatives of shrimp, crab and lobster, and also a few species of fish," he told The Nassau Guardian last week. "But the big question is, what are these animals eating? We believe that the bacteria living in the cave are the base of a food web.  So I had one of my graduate students, Brett Gonzales, conduct an investigation of some bacteria that we found on one of the blue hole walls in Abaco.  And so we scraped some off the wall at a depth of about 100 feet.
"We brought it back to the laboratory and looked at the DNA in these bacteria, and we found that it wasn't just a single species, that there were multiple species and multiple types of bacteria... Most life forms on the surface use photosynthesis as the base of the food chain. There is no light in the [blue hole]."
According to Iliffe, one idea being espoused is that these animals in the blue holes are living under low oxygen environments because there is no photosynthesis - where oxygen is produced. "There is no light; there's no oxygen production. Because of that, the level of oxygen in the caves is low or totally absent.  So these are like the conditions present on the early earth before the evolution of plants and the evolution of photosynthesis.  We believe that some of the bacteria found in these caves are similar to the bacteria that lived on the early earth prior to the evolution of plants," Iliffe continued.
He added that such findings may give some insight into how life could develop on other planets.
"On other planets in the solar system, there is new evidence that shows that oceans existed.  For example on Mars, the oceans have dried up... so if there's water still on Mars, there may be cave explorers going to explore them.  I expect that it would be similar to the cave environment that we have in the blue holes in The Bahamas."
Iliffe has also studied salt water caves in Mexico, Bermuda, the Mediterranean Sea, and in the Pacific Ocean.
"So basically, I've studied all around the world, but The Bahamas stands out as one of the most important and specular areas that I've studied anywhere on earth," he added.
"For example, one of the very interesting species in The Bahamas is called the remipede," he said, adding that it looks like a centipede, and is only found in saltwater caves at significant depths.
"Right now there are 25 known (saltwater cave) species known from around the world.  And of those, 16 are known from caves in The Bahamas," he said.
The Bahamas is known to have more than 1,000 blue holes, most of which have not been scientifically explored.
"I could spend several lifetimes without running out of things to do.  There is no shortage of interesting  and fascinating work to be done," he said.

Iliffe and his team plan to return to The Bahamas later this year.

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