This particular strain was found in Lake Vanda, Antarctica in 1990. An interesting side note here is that one of the most active areas of exploring for extremophile microbes is in the skeletons of beached or dead whales in their naturally cold environments. Whales and seals have a very slow decay rate, particularly in polar regions and because of their very thick layers of blubber, also spawn a community of bacteria that breakdown fats. A single whale that had sunk to the bottom of the polar seas was recently recommended for microbial analysis when a Russian rescue mission discovered its presence while on a reconnaissance mission. This find is considered important to developing new kinds of thermally stable enzymes by standing watch both as biologist and vulture in the carcass of naturally decaying polar life.
Yeasts are eukaryotes, sharing the same superkingdom as humans.
Some of the already decoded genes of these yeasts shed considerable insight into how human genes may work in health and sickness. But yeasts are extremophiles. The most historically significant organism to Western civilization is arguably, Sacchyromyces, because it allowed complex carbohydrates in grain to be fermented to simpler sugars, breads and ethanol. This organism remains one of the elite half-dozen complete genetic scripts available. This is an area of active research, depending on new fossil evidence, geophysical records and even climatic models for atmospheric conditions.