A team of researchers from the National Institute of Polar Research recently revived tardigrades, also known as "water bears," after being frozen for more than 30 years, as previously reported by HNGN. Now, the team has released a video of the amazing process of these creatures slowly recovering from their long slumber.
In May 2014, 0.2 millimeter-long tardigrades were discovered in a frozen moss sample originating from Antarctica in November 1983. The team found two individuals and one egg in the sample; one individual survived and the juvenile that hatched from the egg went on to successfully reproduce.
Although the recovery process was slow, taking two weeks for the animal to crawl, it ended up laying 19 eggs, 14 of which hatched into healthy offspring. The time taken for the first laid egg to hatch was almost double the median time, 19 days, of all of the eggs, but the surviving offspring appeared to be healthy. The other revived tardigrade died approximately 20 days after rehydration despite showing initial promise.
The juvenile that hatched from the frozen egg grew up with no problems and ended up laying 15 eggs, seven of which successfully hatched.
In terms of damage accumulated over the 30-plus years of cryptobiosis, the team says that the extended recovery time and longer time required for the first egg to hatch may indicate damages, although no obvious damage was observed in the animal that was producted from the revived egg.
"Our team now aims at unraveling the mechanisms underlying the long-term survival of cryptobiotic organisms by studying damage to tardigrades' DNA and their ability to repair it," Megumu Tsujimto, lead researcher of the study, said in a press release.
The findings are now available in the February issue of Cryptobiology.
