Longest time survived in a dried state by a tardigrade

Tardigrades in the Heterotardigrada class can survive in a dehydrated, desiccated state for 20 years and those of Eutardigrada class for 15 years. To endure prolonged periods of drought, these tiny animals expel cytoplasm (mostly water, proteins and salts) from their body cells and replacing it with a family of proteins known as TDPs, which form a glass-like structure. This prevents the tardigrade's cells from deteriorating, allowing them to be revived when the surrounding environmental conditions become more favourable.

TDP is short for "tardigrade-specific intrinsically disordered proteins".

The details for this record were supplied by our consultant Łukasz Kaczmarek, Associate Professor, Department of Animal Taxonomy & Ecology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland.