snottite

Noun

snottite (plural snottites)

1. A colony of single-celled extremophilic bacteria that hangs in a sheet (having the consistency of snot or nasal mucus) from the ceilings of some caves like stalactites.
   • We worked our way past the gypsum bank to a small, snottite-laden room around a corner from it. A few days earlier, Martin and his crew had filmed Diana sampling a snottite here as she discussed the strangeness of multiple life forms adapting to such an extremely acidic microenvironment. The...1999, Michael Ray Taylor, “April 18, 1998”, in Dark Life: Martian Nanobacteria, Rock-eating Cave Bugs, and Other Extreme Organisms of Inner Earth and Outer Space, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, →ISBN...
   • [Page 14, column 1] This expedition also began investigating the acidity of drips from snottites in the cave. […] [Page 15, column 2] Inspection revealed that the "snottites" are communities of microbes similar to microbial mats commonly associated with sulfur-rich surface springs, but these...1999 April, Louise D. Hose, James A. Pisarowicz, “Cueva de Villa Luz, Tabasco, Mexico: Reconnaissance Study of an Active Sulfur Spring Cave and Ecosystem”, in Louise D. Hose, editor, Journal of Cave...

   Synonyms:

   snoticle