Moscow: The worms, known as nematodes or more commonly as roundworms, came from two samples found in Siberia. One sample, about 32,000 years old, was discovered in a glacial core taken from 30 meters below the surface of a permafrost deposit, while the other was isolated from a 3.5-meter-deep deposits dated at 41,7000 years old.

Nematodes are tiny worms that typically measure about one millimetre in length, and are known to have impressive abilities.

Researchers from Moscow State University in Russia and Princeton University in the US analysed 300 samples of Arctic permafrost deposits and found two that held several well-preserved nematodes.

The isolated worms belong to two nematode species: Panagrolaimus detritophagus and Plectus parvus. After defrosting the worms, researchers saw them moving and eating, making this first evidence of "natural cryopreservation" of multicellular animals.

The worms, frozen at a time when much of Earth was covered in ice, become the oldest known living things on the planet by a wide margin.


This is not the first organism to awaken from millennia in icy suspension. Previously, another group of scientists had identified a giant virus that was brought back to life after spending 30,000 years frozen in Siberian permafrost.


The findings, published in the journal Doklady Biological Sciences in May, became available online recently.