In the sediments and soils of the living world, a quiet transaction has been taking place for hundreds of millions of years: animals breaking down the carbon reserves of microorganisms, extracting energy from a substance science had assumed was beyond their reach. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, led to this discovery by a mouthless marine worm that farms bacteria beneath its skin, have found that more than sixty-six species across nine animal phyla carry enzymes capable of digesting polyhydroxyalkanoates—natural bioplastics that microorganisms produce to store