extremophile

Etymology

From extreme + -o- + -phile.

noun

1. (ecology) An organism that lives under extreme conditions of temperature, salinity etc; commercially important as a source of enzymes that operate under similar conditions.
   They had found the world's first extremophiles – organisms that could live in water that had previously been assumed to be much too hot or acid or choked with sulphur to bear life. 2003, Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, BCA, page 207
   Lichens are 'extremophiles', organisms able to live, from our point of view, in other worlds. 2020, Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life, page 95