Ancient life awakens amid thawing ice caps and permafrost

Wshington Post ^ | July 7 at 12:00 PM | Daniel Ackerman

[BenLurkin]

Vishnivetskaya ... has coaxed million-year-old bacteria back to life on a petri dish. They look “very similar to bacteria you can find in cold environments [today],” she said.

But last year, Vishnivetskaya’s team announced an “accidental finding” — one with a brain and nervous system — that shattered scientists’ understanding of extreme endurance.

They placed the frozen material on petri dishes in their room-temperature lab and noticed something strange. Hulking among the puny bacteria and amoebae were long, segmented worms complete with a head at one end and anus at the other — nematodes.

Clocking in at a half-millimeter long, the nematodes that wriggled back to life were the most complex creatures ... ever revived after a lengthy deep freeze.

She estimated one nematode to be 41,000 years old — by far the oldest living animal ever discovered. This very worm dwelled in the soil beneath Neanderthals’ feet and had lived to meet modern-day humans in Vishnivetskaya’s high-tech laboratory.

When environmental conditions deteriorate, some nematode species can hunker down into a state of suspended animation called the dauer stage — dauer means duration in German — in which they forestall feeding and grow a protective coating that shields them from extreme conditions.

Vishnivetskaya is not sure whether the nematodes her team pulled from the permafrost passed the epochs in dauer stage. But she speculated that nematodes could theoretically survive indefinitely if frozen stably.

It is ecological gospel that some creatures — from birds to butterflies to wildebeest — survive by migrating vast and hazardous distances to find favorable habitat. More recent discoveries hint at a different migratory mode: through time.

After protracted slumber in Earth’s icy fringes, bacteria, moss and nematodes are awakening in a new geologic epoch. And for these paragons of endurance, the weather is just right.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks fieldmarshaldj. BFL.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks fieldmarshaldj.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks fieldmarshaldj.

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