Can any Animal Live for Years Without Food?
There is a very small creature known as the tardigrada, a distant relation of the spiders and popularly known as the water bear, which can dry up till apparently all life is extinct, and after remaining in that condition for years, can, with the aid of moisture, revive and live its normal life once more.
These creatures live naturally in a damp atmosphere, but if the atmosphere becomes dry they also dry up. All movement gradually ceases, the body shrinks until it looks like a battered grain of sand, and thus it will remain year after year, to all appearances dead. If placed in water, however, in a few minutes it will swell out, the wrinkles will disappear, the legs will stretch out, and gradually it will move. In an hour or so the creature is as active as ever, and crawls away.
Some snails, too, can remain apparently dead for years without food, and then revive and live as though nothing had happened to them. The most striking example of this was a desert snail from Egypt, supposed to be dead, which was fixed to a tablet in the British Museum, London, on March 25, 1846. On March 7, 1850, it was observed to have awakened from its long sleep and come out of its shell. It was removed from the case and lived for a considerable time.
