A 46,000-year-old frozen worm comes back to life and begins to have children

2023-08-04 17:45:28

As reported by ‘The Washington Post’, scientists have discovered a microscopic-sized female worm that had been trapped inside the Siberian permafrost for around 46,000 years. Through a process called parthenogenesis, the worm began to have young the moment it was revived. This is a process by which female cells reproduce without having to be fertilized, so they do not need a partner.

This worm has spent thousands of years in a lethargy called cryptobiosis, a state that can last indefinitely and that consists of the suspension of metabolic processes in which some living beings enter when environmental conditions are extreme. When all metabolic systems stop, so do reproduction, development and repair systems, as explained by the University of Hawaii at Mānoa.

A study has published that scientists point out that the worm’s genome sequences do not belong to a species that we know of before, so we would be facing a “described species”. This is not the first creature to be brought back to life, the nematodes Plectus murrayi and Tylenchus polyhypnous had already resurrected moss and some herbarium specimens after a few dozen years, Live Science has reported.

Scientists have named this species of worm ‘Panagrolaimus kolymaensis’ and apparently describe that the species suffered a break in its existence as it was dormant for thousands of years and has now revived again.

So far only 5000 marine species have been described

A deep-sea biologist named Holly Bik has reported that there are millions of species of nematodes that live in very diverse environments, such as ocean trenches, tundras, deserts or volcanic soils, but until now they have only been described by scientists some 5000 marine species.

A University nematologist, William Crow, has stated that this worm could belong to a species thought to have become extinct in the last 50,000 years. But most likely it was a common nematode that no one had yet described.

Although it seems an unusual fact that the worm has survived for so many years, this fact does not surprise scientists, since it has been known for years that microscopic organisms can enter a state of cryptobiosis by which they can stop their biological functions to be able to survive in extreme conditions.