All organisms in Nature face unavoidable environmental changes that require and testify to their adaptability.¹  During the long history of the Earth, some organisms have failed to adapt to changes in their environments and declined, whereas those that adopted intelligent strategies survived. Certain organisms have chosen an extreme strategy, called “cryptobiosis”, in which most metabolic processes involved in their proliferation, reproduction, and development are shut down in response to adverse environmental conditions, such as nutrient deficiency, desiccation, freezing, and oxygen deficiency.² 

In the cryptobiotic state, organisms remain dormant and protect their cellular components from external stresses. When a favorable environment is restored, the organisms return to the metabolically active state present before cryptobiosis. Several types of cryptobiosis exist: anhydrobiosis (induced by desiccation), cryobiosis (induced by freezing temperatures), osmobiosis (induced by high osmotic pressure), and anoxybiosis (induced by a lack of oxygen).