Tyranosaurues rex came and went

In the middle of the biggest ocean, deep below the busy ecosystems, lies the oldest possible life-form on this planet. It lives under huge pressures, 30m below the actual seabed and 86 million years ago, began reproducing there. The only trouble was, it took ages. Eons later, its offspring survive "in the slow lane", in what is now the vortex called the North Pacific gyre.

As Tyranosaurues rex came and went, then mammals ruled the waves and the land, it persisted with its life-style. This single-celled archaeon, regarded as a relative of eukaryotes like ourselves and distantly related to bacteria, is the sloth to beat all sloths with the slowest growth known to date.