Fueled by the chemicals dissolved in the vent fluids, these areas are often home to large and diverse communities of thermophilic, halophilic and other extremophilic prokaryotic microorganisms (such as those of the sulfide-oxidizing Beggiatoa genus), often arranged in large bacterial mats near cold seeps.
These thermophilic beetles can mainly be encountered in sunny places on inflorescences of Apiaceae and Asteraceae species, especially Achillea species.
Sequences from aerobic, anaerobic, psychrophilic, thermophilic, halophilic, alkaliphilic, acidophilic, desiccation-resistant, autotrophic, and heterotrophic organisms were present, including a number from multicellular eukaryotes.
Mycobacterium hassiacum is a rapid-growing thermophilic mycobacterium that was isolated in human urine in 1997 by researchers at the German University of Regensburg.