Seen here through the electron microscope, a smiling immortal Rotifer is happy because it has beaten the odds of death. Bdelloid rotifers are found living in freshwater environments across the Earth, some making the journey through millennia of time. In fantastic scientific news, the rotifer species is shown to be immortal, living forever.
Adorable Creatures Live Forever
The friendly microscopic multi-celled Bdelloid Rotifer is one of the first species to achieve immortality, measured to have lived 24,000 years. Discovered in the harsh environment of Siberia, the species came back to life after surviving 24,000 years. It was discovered at the Alayeza River in the Russian Arctic. It was found suspended in a state of frozen Crytobiosis animation and was able to reproduce asexually, having survived millenia.
According Current Biology, they can survive for thousands of years, and likely indefinitely. The takeaway is that a multicellular organism can be frozen and stored as such for thousands of years and then return back to life - a dream of many fiction writers, Stas Malavin, of Russia's Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science, told the Press Association. It's unknown how they achieve immortality.
Precise radiocarbon dating found its age to be between 23,960 and 24,485 years old. Scientific tests show the creatures are able to withstand extremes and are one of the most radioactive-resistant animals, according to the New York Times. The New York Times also reports they can also withstand starvation, low oxygen, acid and years of dehydration. Other multi-celled creatures that can endure thousands of years and come back to life include nematode worms, plants and moss.