An international effort to revive an ancient roundworm, frozen in Siberian permafrost for millennia, has unleashed a lifeform even older than scientists once thought.
, were dated to around 32,000 years old. But now, more precise radiocarbon dating suggests these soil worms have remained 'dead awake' in parts of Siberia since at least the late Pleistocene, around 46,000 years ago.
If correct, the record absolutely smashes the longest known state of extreme inactivity observed among animal life, a phenomenon known as cryptobiosis. After reviving the frozen worm in the lab and cultivating it for over 100 generations, researchers, led by experts at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, ran a genome analysis.To date, scientists know of very few animals capable of suspending themselves in a limbo-like state in response to tough environmental conditions., are just a few of the animals known to enter cryptobiosis.
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