Did You Know? | 46,000-Year-Old Nematode Was Resurrected From the Siberian Permafrost?

5 min readSep 12, 2023

Longevity | A Concept Humankind is Yet to Master

One of the biggest problems that humanity is trying to address is longevity. While medicines have progressed by leaps and bounds over the past century, their results in human life longevity are barely visible. The average age improved from 50-odd years in the nineteenth century to 80-plus in the twentieth century. That’s impressive when we compare humanity alone.

The same stats seem unimpressive if we delve into the realm of suspended animation on human beings. Science is still scratching at the surface of this study area and we don’t even have examples of human life being revived after hours of suspended animation. So, we are quite primitive in our knowledge in this area.

I call it primitive only to showcase that there are other life forms on this planet that exhibit impressive longevity in conditions similar to suspended animation. However, I’ve got to admit that it’s not like they have a scientific understanding of the concept to call that advanced vs. our understanding primitive. 😊 It is just to show that facts seen in other life forms are yet to be replicated in human beings. I digressed.

Anyway, the lifeform that I spoke about is a nematode thought to be frozen in the last ice age about 46,000 years ago.

46,000-Year-Old Nematode | Would Have Seen the Curtains Fall on the Dinosaurs

One of the features of the permafrost around the globe is that it has concealed in its abode, lifeforms, artifacts, and even human remains from ages ago. But the recent finding of a species of nematode that went to sleep 46,000 years ago and woke up a few years back has baffled scientists.

Not that sustainability of life in difficult environments and suspension of life in extreme situations hasn’t been observed before. Tardigrades are a great example of both — survival in extreme conditions and suspension and revival of life in testing conditions. The same has been observed in Nematodes as well, but never to this time span.

The last discovery in the same Siberian permafrost was that of a virus that remained inactive for 30,000 years, but the Nematode has trumped that timeline by another 16,000 years. That’s about the time the nematode would have said goodbye to the dinosaurs.

And Now The Details | What Was This Nematode All About?

The nematode in discussion is an ancient microscopic worm that remained dormant in a fossilized squirrel burrow for 46,000 years. Researchers, in the course of their study, identified and isolated the worm in 2018 from its temporary grave. Nematode refers to a species of roundworms and this one was a completely new species, now termed Panagrolaimus Kolymaensis.

Scientists revived the worm in 2018 and it was observed that it jumped back to life. The ability to enter such dormant states by nematodes and tardigrades is by reducing their oxygen consumption and the amount of heat produced by metabolic activities to undetectable levels. But even then, survival for such a long period is unprecedented and goes beyond the previously thought levels by thousands of years.

The previous record for a nematode revival period was held by the Antarctic nematode species Plectus Murrayi and Tylenchus Polyhypnus which were frozen for 25.5 years and 39 years, respectively. And in comparison, the Panagrolaimus Kolymaensis seems to have stayed alive for durations at a planetary level and not just human life span levels.

Crazy Impressive Discovery | Still Can’t Get Around It

It is difficult to understand that something that entered cryptobiosis (suspended animation) about 46,000 years ago or 460 centuries or 46 millennia ag o still remains alive. The better-known human civilizations of the past like the Indian, Egyptian, Greek, etc. still date back to about 5000 years. But this nematode is ten times older and still alive. That’s beyond comprehension.

Maybe our scientists can study better and come up with medicines or scientific approaches for human well-being if not longevity. We keep getting visual and microscopic cues all around us. It is up to us what we do with it. 😊