Recently scientists discovered a Nematode, which is a female microscopic roundworm. It has been in the depths of the soil for almost 46,000 years. According to the Washington Post, when they rescued the female worm, it started having babies through a process that doesn’t require any partner called parthenogenesis.
As per the press release, the worm spent over a thousand years in a cryptobiosis dormancy. In that state, all metabolic processes pause, such as “reproduction, repair, and development,” according to the University of Hawai’i at Manoa research information.
The fact is that worms can survive more than those years because, according to the worm study, they can stop their biological activity, which helps them to survive even in unpleasant conditions.
The worms which the scientist found were taken from a fossilized burrow. Based on the plant analysis, the study published in the journal PLOS Genetics says that those worms were frozen between 45,839 and 47,769 years ago.
A scientist said, “Everything seems to be possible for these animals and that’s what makes them so fascinating.” Scientists further implemented radiocarbon dating, which helped them to detect that the permafrost soil sample was more than 46,000 years old.
According to NPR, “Nematodes are among the planet’s most ubiquitous life forms. Scientists had known that some could survive long periods of suspended animation in subzero environments.”
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