The Puzzle of Mixotricha Paradoxa
- sharpdb
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Hosts: Doug Sharp and Rich Geer
A curiosity I studied in my microbiology class many years ago, Mixotricha Paradoxa represents a case of a microorganism that is made up of a symbiosis of several unrelated types of bacteria. This organism lives in the gut of the Australian termite Mastotermes darwiniensis.
This is a giant termite that is only found in northern Australia. According to the Wikipedia article, this is the most "primitive" extant termite species. ("Primitive" is only in the minds of evolutionists). This species does not form mounds but builds nests underground in a complex network of tunnels and galleries which they use to travel to new food sites. It is the only living member of its genus and family. Apparently, evolutionists find it difficult to classify, as they found similarities to cockroaches, with a similar abdomen.
In Northern Australia, this organism is a major pest to the point where vegetable farming has been virtually abandoned wherever this termite is abundant.
Mixotricha Paradoxa lives in the gut of this pest, and for that reason it has been studied. The name was given by the Australian biologist J. L. Sutherland, who first described it in 1933. The name means "the paradoxical being with mixed up hairs". This large protist has both cilia and flagella, which before this discovery was not thought to be possible. It forms a mutualistic relationship with five different kinds of bacteria living inside the termite. There is a total of four bacterial symbiont species. Inside the cell, there is a spherical bacterium that has the same function as mitochondria, which Mixotricha lacks.
The article claims that the Mixotricha mitochondria degenerated and lost the ability to produce energy aerobically. That begs the question, as we have no idea from what we find in the present what the evolutionary precursor might have looked like. The Mixotricha has four flagella at one end that serve as rudders, three pointing forward and one backwards. There are brackets that hold thousands of spirochetes that provide locomotion. Each bracket holds one spirochete and one bacillus. It is not definite, but it is believed that basal bodies could be making cellulases that digest wood.
About 250,000 hairlike Treponema spirochaetes, a species of helical bacteria, are attached to the cell surface and provide the organism with cilia like movements. The flagella provide the steering. The motion of the spirochetes is in sync with each other, suggesting that they are somehow in touch with each other.
Mixotricha have five genomes, as they form very close symbiotic relationships with four types of bacteria. The question is if these genomes evolved separately and came together. Evolutionists really are not looking for an explanation involving a master designer who coordinates symbiosis. They look for common features and misinterpret them as being from common descent.
I recognized immediately the significance of the impossibility of five different synchronizing genomes to make up this organism when I took this microbiology class. It is obvious that this is a product of a Creator God who design these creatures to work in harmony.
The question why this termite is a "pest" and why God would create this is not that weighty to answer. God designed certain creatures to be decomposers to consume dead plant life and turn it into soil. It is only a "pest" in terms of how man wants to cultivate agriculture, and if the environment is out of balance, one creature can be become destructive.
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