Cryptobiosis

• A microscopic worm survived in the Siberian permafrost for a record-breaking 46,000 years, scientists have discovered — tens of thousands of years longer than previously resurrected worms.
• The ancient roundworm, or nematode, belongs to the newly described species Panagrolaimus kolymaensis.
• Researchers discovered it nestled inside a fossilized squirrel burrow that was extracted from permafrost near the Kolyma River, in the northeastern Arctic, in 2002.

ABOUT CRYPTOBIOSIS

• Many animals like nematodes, and more famously, tardigrades, can survive extreme conditions by entering a dormant state called “cryptobiosis.”
• Cryptobiosis is the state of an organism when it shows no visible signs of life and when its metabolic activity becomes hardly measurable, or comes reversibly to a standstill.
• In this state organisms can survive complete absence of water and oxygen and withstand other extreme conditions.
• Since metabolism is a defining characteristic of life, cryptobiosis can be termed as a temporary death of an organism.