: Wednesday, June 9, 2021, 5:26 PM IST 'Was it waiting for COVID-19?': Worm comes back to life after 24,000 years in deep freeze, Twitterati respond hilariously Photo: Unsplash/@jxb511 After lying frozen for 24,000 years in the permafrost lands of northeastern Siberia, a worm has come back to life and reproduced asexually. According to this Reuters report, this tiny, ancient animal called the 'bdelloid rotifer' was found by scientists in the soil taken from the river Alazeya in Russia's Yakutia region. This multicellular organism is found in freshwater habitats across the world. It has the ability to withstand extreme cold. Previous research suggests that it could survive for a decade when frozen at -20 degrees Celsius.