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34,000 Years in a Hibernation State!
http://www.lockergnome.com/lumpy/2011/01/14/34000-years-in-a-hibernation-state/
I am not so sure I agree with using the term hibernation. After all those orbits round the Sun, I think suspended animation may be a more appropriate descriptor.
An article over at Amazing World reports of a bacteria surviving in salt crystals for over 30,000 years. The bacteria were trapped by the salt crystals which can form very rapidly. Within the salt crystal were trapped tiny bubbles of water. The bacteria are a salt loving bacteria still populating the world today.
The bacteria in the droplets were described to be in a suspended hibernation like state. Not moving, not reproducing, reduced in size yet still alive. It is believed they may have been in such a state for 34,000 years. Along with the bacteria algae were also trapped. The tiny bubbles of water may have been micro-ecologies. The acedemic paper is actually titled “Microbial communities in fluid inclusions and long-term survival in halite“.
Also amazing, is that a small percentage of these microbes revived and actually reproduced. This waking up process was also repeated by another lab. 34,000 years or not, it is still pretty amazing that they can survive in such micro-ecologies.
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