In new research announced and published today, Russian scientists have found very minute and frozen creatures in the heart of permafrost extracted from the soil in Siberia using a drilling rig.
According to the study published in the journal “Current Biology”, the microscopic animal returned to life after sleeping in the polar permafrost for 24,000 years.
Bdelloid rotifers, a series of tiny cells 4-15 microns in size, typically live in aquatic environments and have an incredible ability to survive.
“Our report is the strongest evidence to date that multicellular animals can survive tens of thousands of years in cryptobiosis, i.e. in a completely stopped metabolic state,” said Stas Malavin, a researcher in the Krolgi laboratory at the Pushchino Scientific Center for Biology in Russia. Almost”.
Previous research by other groups has shown that these creatures can live for up to 10 years when frozen.
Os tardígrados parecem ursinhos fofinhos e levam todo o crédito, mas os rotíferos fazem as mesma coisa. Este foi "acordado" após dormir por 24 mil anos no gelo siberiano (1/2). pic.twitter.com/M0kFbHtDCB
— Prof. Juan Cisneros ⚒️ 🐉 (@PaleoCisneros) June 7, 2021
But in the new study, Russian researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine that the creatures they recovered from permafrost, which is ground frozen year-round, regardless of how close the layer is to the surface, were about 24,000 years old.
According to CNN, stumps of “Antarctic” moss were successfully replanted from a 1,000-year-old specimen that had been covered in ice for nearly 400 years.
A flower has also been revived from seed tissue, likely stored by a squirrel found in the Arctic, and which has been preserved for 32,000 years in ancient permafrost.
Some simple worms, called nematodes, have been revived from permafrost from two places in northeastern Siberia, found in sediments more than 30,000 years old.