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I understand that adult mayflies have no mouth, but they do take in oxygen through openings in their exoskeleton.

Is there any organism that does not need to ingest any type of nutrition and does not need to take in something for cellular respiration?

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  • $\begingroup$ Assuming you don't mean an immortal organism, do you mean a type of organism (species) that can reproduce an equivalent offspring organism without inputs? How could that work, since without inputs the offspring would have to be smaller than the parent (and thus not equivalent)? $\endgroup$
    – mgkrebbs
    Commented Oct 8, 2019 at 19:25
  • $\begingroup$ @mgkrebbs I'm not familiar with an immortal organism in a biological context. Yes, I mean a species that can reproduce an equivalent offspring organism. I wouldn't imagine that would work. It came up in a discussion making a comparison of biological life with the claim there is a non-biological system that is alive. $\endgroup$
    – Bob516
    Commented Oct 8, 2019 at 19:40

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You may need to clarify your question: As written, this would be the biological equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. No such organism could reproduce without either violating the first and second laws of thermodynamics, or ultimately evaporating into nothingness as it divides.

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    $\begingroup$ Well that answers my question. There are no such organisms. $\endgroup$
    – Bob516
    Commented Oct 8, 2019 at 22:13
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No, I think this fails even on simply definitional terms. That is, Life is (sometimes) defined as meeting certain criteria, such exhibiting growth, metabolism, and response to stimuli. Those will all require intake of some external substance at some point.

To get even more pedantic, all cells have a cell membrane, which is selectively permeable to certain molecules. Every organism will thus passively let in some substances from the environment, and thereby failing your criteria.

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Luna moth , so I expect there are other moths.

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    $\begingroup$ Luna moth caterpillars do feed. $\endgroup$
    – kmm
    Commented Oct 8, 2019 at 20:41
  • $\begingroup$ The adult moths do not eat , per Wikipedia. $\endgroup$
    – blacksmith37
    Commented Oct 9, 2019 at 16:00
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    $\begingroup$ You are correct that adults don't eat, but the question was about organisms being born with all their lifetime nutrients. I would argue that a caterpillar eating means that luna months are not born with all their required nutrients. $\endgroup$
    – kmm
    Commented Oct 9, 2019 at 17:42
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I would point that maybe there is an organism that can pass enough nutrients to 1 generation to survive and reproduce, but not continuously generation after generation. Search in this camp, you may find something.

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