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A team of researchers, jointly led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Plymouth, along with collaborators from the University of Maine and UMass Chan Medical School, have discovered that a population of symbiotic microbes, living in an overlooked sub-organ of the gut called the "typhlosole," have the ability to secrete the enzymes needed to digest lignin -- the toughest part of wood.

It turns out that shipworms have a curious sub-organ, called a typhlosole -- "it looks like Salvador Dali's mustache upside down," says Shipway -- that is embedded in the mollusk's digestive tract.

Finally, other animal species, including other mollusks, the common earthworm and even the tadpole stages of frogs, also possess a typhlosole that has not been thoroughly studied before.

The intestine is usually in the higher forms provided with a typhlosole, in which, in Pontoscolex, runs a ciliated canal or canals communicating with the intestine.