Bdelloid rotifer slept under Siberia ice for 24000 years, now it has woken up

Researchers from Russia’s Institute of Physiological and Biological Problems have discovered a microscopic arctic animal that had been sleeping in Siberia’s permafrost for 24,000 years and has just woken up. This creature is a bedelloid rotifer, a small freshwater crater that has survived for a millennium in the cold permafrost of Siberia. Rotifers, also commonly known as ‘wheel animalcules’, were previously believed to live up to 10 years when frozen. But new research has set a new limit.

These multicellular invertebrates are actually females and are popular for their resistance to radiation. They are also able to withstand inhospitable environments such as starvation, low oxygen and even arid ones. They are often found in freshwater lakes, ponds, rivers and moist terrestrial habitats such as tree bark, moss, and soil.

These rotifers are equipped with a complete digestive system that consists of both a mouth and an anus. Their secret to survive in harsh conditions is to disable all the activities in their body and stop their metabolism by putting the body in a state of cryptobiosis.

One of the leading researchers, Stas Malvin, explains this phenomenon as a stage between life and death. According to Stas, rotifers may have been under the feet of larger woolly creatures. In addition, they observed that once the ice had melted, they were also able to regenerate. “Our report is the strongest evidence to date that multicellular animals can survive in cryptobiosis for thousands of years, a state of near-complete eredate metabolism,” Stas said.

Its conclusion is that a multicellular organism can be frozen and stored for thousands of years and then come back to life i.e. what can be alive again. This is a dream of many fiction writers. Of course, the more complex the organism, the more difficult it is to preserve it. This is currently not possible for mammals.