The giant tube worm prefers environments such as these despite the harsh temperature and toxic sea water.

The plume is a complex structure that has tightly stacked sheets of tentacles forming a gill-like organ.

The plume also has blood vessels containing large amounts of haemoglobin, which gives the animal a blood-red colouration.

[7] They both rely exclusively on a single species of sulfide-oxidizing endosymbiotic bacteria for their nutrients.

Hydrothermal vents arise when Earth's tectonic plates spread apart, where magma interacts with sea water to create an environment for certain types of microbes.