RESEARCHERS discovered ancient worms that have been dead for 46 thousand years. The worm didn’t die entirely, but froze in Siberia for thousands of years and then resurrected.
The ancient worm was found in the Siberian permafrost, at a depth of 40 meters. When the researchers dated some of the plant material found near the creature, they assigned an initial freezing period to be between 45,839 and 47,769 years ago.
This beats out another ancient nematode, of the genus Plectus, also found frozen in Siberia and dated to about 42,000 years ago in 2018. Both nematodes have nearly twice the size of Siberia’s ancient rotifers, which were recently revived after 24,000 years of cryptobiosis.
When the researchers compared the genome of P. kolymaensis with that of one of its living relatives, Caenorhabditis elegans, they found many overlapping genes among the earthworms.
Interestingly, Caenorhabditis elegans is usually found in temperate climates, hiding in rotting fruits or plants. However, it turns out that the species can survive in soil.
“Research shows that by adapting to survive in a cryptobiotic state for short periods of time in environments such as permafrost, some nematode species acquire the potential for individual worms to remain in that state for geological timescales,” the researchers said. sciencealert.
Now, researchers are trying to understand what role genes play in cryptobiosis and whether there is an upper limit to how long nematodes can survive in this mysterious state.
“These findings have implications for our understanding of evolutionary processes, as generation times can extend from a few days to thousands of years, and the long-term survival of individual species can lead to the restoration of extinct lineages,” the authors of the paper. . he wrote.
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