---
title: "Scientists Melted Ancient Ice and a Long-Dead Worm Wriggled Out"
description: "Scientists who were melting permafrost ice to look for ancient microbes were surprised to see a pile of 41,000 year-old worms wake up and wiggle around."
date: "2019-07-09"
modified: "2019-07-09"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ancient-ice-worm"
categories:
  - "Biology"
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "biology"
  - "permafrost"
  - "the digest"
  - "worms"
---

# Scientists Melted Ancient Ice and a Long-Dead Worm Wriggled Out

![Scientists who were melting permafrost ice to look for ancient microbes were surprised to see a pile of 41,000 year-old worms wake up and wiggle around.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ancient-ice-worm.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: P. Boelen/BAS\</em\>*

## Welcome Back

When a team of biologists melted some Siberian permafrost to [look for microbes](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/melting-arctic-releasing-poison-disease-nuclear-waste>), an ancient survivor waved hello.

On University of Tennessee microbiologist Tatiana Vishnivetskaya's petri dish sat a small pile of nematodes — half-millimeter long roundworms — that sprang back to life as the ice age-era frost melted away around them, [according to *The Washington Post*](<https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/ancient-life-awakens-amid-thawing-ice-caps-and-permafrost/2019/07/05/335281f8-7108-11e9-9f06-5fc2ee80027a_story.html?utm_term=.69706f91ec36>). The against-all-odds survival story may suggest that life could survive extreme conditions — including those on other planets.

## Long Nap

Vishnivetskaya thinks the worms, which are the most complex organisms to [survive being frozen](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-clone-extinct-horse-42000-year-old-blood>) and thawed, are about 41,000 years old. She suggested to *WaPo* that they could have survived indefinitely in the ice, as long as the permafrost stayed stable.

"If they survived 41,000 years, I have no idea what the upper limit is," nematode expert Gaetan Borgonie of Belgium's Extreme Life Isyensya Institute told *WaPo*.

## Re-Animator

Borgonie told *WaPo* that nematodes survive in the harshest environments on Earth — they've been found miles beneath the surface and in oxygen-deprived mine shafts, for example. He sees the animal's unusual resilience here on Earth as a sign that life could exist on other, less hospitable planets.

"It's very good news for the solar system," he told *WaPo*.

**READ MORE:** [Ancient life awakens amid thawing ice caps and permafrost](<https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/ancient-life-awakens-amid-thawing-ice-caps-and-permafrost/2019/07/05/335281f8-7108-11e9-9f06-5fc2ee80027a_story.html?utm_term=.69706f91ec36>) \[*The Washington Post*\]

**More on melting permafrost:** *[The Melting Arctic Is Releasing Poison, Disease, and Nuclear Waste](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/melting-arctic-releasing-poison-disease-nuclear-waste>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)