Tardigrade OR Water bear

Tardigrades are tough little critters, and now one of their secrets for longevity has been revealed. It might sound like something out of a sci-fi movie, but the creatures seem to coat themselves in glass when they don’t have enough water to live normally.

The strange little creatures, sometimes called water bears, tend to live in wet locations. But if they find themselves somewhere dry, they enter a state where they can survive for years, even decades, without food or water. Yet they’re also able to resuscitate themselves once more when they’re in the presence of water.

I Fucking Love Science reports that this trick is made possible by the creature’s ability to create glassy, protective layers within its cells. The tardigrade seems to produce a protein that’s disordered in the presence of water. But when it dries out, the protein enters a glass-like phase, which appears to form a protective glaze over parts of its cells that would usually dry out and crumble when starved of water.

Before ya git all Freeky, the below photo is of clumps of grass these critters live on.