'They don‘t need to find males and have sex, they just start making eggs, which develop.'
, the international team of researchers described how they revived a newly discovered species of nematodes, which are slender worms that can inhabit a huge range of environments.
They found that this particular species can suspend its metabolism to enter a state called "cryptobiosis," allowing it to survive for tens of thousands of years. Over several experiments, the researchers "mildly desiccated" both the ancient and a more-studied control group and froze them, finding that both species were easily able to survive temperatures down to -112 degrees Fahrenheit, not unlike the survival mechanism of tardigrades.
"Our findings indicate that by adapting to survive [in a] cryptobiotic state for short time frames in environments like permafrost, some nematode species gained the potential for individual worms to remain in the state for geological timeframes," the paper reads. Given how global warming is triggering rapid changes in the environment, the researchers postulate that organisms like these nematodes could potentially be woken from their millennia-long slumber, an impressive survival mechanism that could "lead to the refoundation of otherwise extinct lineages."
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