Get unlimited access to everything VICE has to offer.

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

4 Magazines Delivered to Your Door

A ‘Zombie Worm’ Came Back to Life After 24,000 Years and Started Multiplying

A creature born during the Ice Age just had babies in a Russian laboratory. That’s pretty wild.

Share on X (Opens in new window)X

Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Facebook

Share using Native toolsShareCopied to clipboard

Scientists pulled a microscopic animal they dubbed a “zombie worm” from Siberian permafrost, thawed it, and watched it wake up and reproduce. The organism had been frozen since the Late Pleistocene, back when woolly mammoths were still a thing. It took a nap for 24,000 years and came back as if nothing had happened.

The creature is a bdelloid rotifer, a tiny multicellular animal about half a millimeter long, usually found in freshwater environments. They’re already known among scientists for being nearly indestructible—surviving radiation, dehydration, extreme cold, and low oxygen. Researchers from Russia’s Soil Cryology Laboratory drilled down about 11.5 feet into the Alazeya River region of northeastern Siberia, pulled a core sample, and carbon-dated it to between 23,960 and 24,485 years old. Then they thawed it.

The rotifer not only moved but also reproduced........

© Vice