Paralvinella hessleri accumulates microscopic particles of arsenic on its outer skin, which reacts with sulfide to form a microscopic armour of yellow orpiment.Credit: Wang et al./PLoS Biol (CC BY 4.0) A bright-yellow worm that lives in deep-sea hydrothermal vents is the first known animal to create orpiment, a brilliant but toxic mineral used by artists from antiquity until the nineteenth …
Read More »This deep-sea worm creates a toxic yellow pigment found in Rembrandt and Cézanne paintings
