COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Danish scientists have found a completely new kind of animal down a cold well in Greenland and are keeping a colony of them in a fridge, the Arctic magazine Polarfronten reported on the Internet.
The 0.1 millimeter long freshwater organism does not fit into any one of the previously known animal families — making it only the fourth such creature to be discovered on the planet in the past 100 years, Polarfronten said Thursday.

Studies of the animal named “Limnognathia maerski” show that it shares some characteristics with certain seawater life-forms.

Scientists from Copenhagen University and Aarhus University in Denmark have established a new phylum — or family — for the tiny animal, whose most remarkable feature is a set of very complicated jaws.

It has now got its own branch, Micrognathozoa, on the tree of the world’s known animals, which are divided into slightly more than 30 families, Polarfronten said.

Limnognathia maerski, which reproduces through parthenogenesis, uses its jaws to scrape the bacteria and algae it feeds on from underwater moss growing in icy wells which freeze over during the long Arctic winter.

The animal was found in samples taken in 1994 from a well in Isunngua on Disco island in northwestern Greenland. A colony of the tiny creatures, all females, are currently living in a refrigerator at Copenhagen University.

Greenland, the world’s largest island, is part of Denmark.