When determining the age using radiocarbon dating, scientists discovered that the frog was 2,000,000 years old. When found, its skin was still soft and shiny. Could it be immortal?
In July 1946, a petroleum geologist traveled thousands of miles to an oil field in Mexico. During exploration, he unearthed a frog in a state of hibernation. When the geologist found it, the frog had been buried in the mine at a depth of 2 meters. Strangely, when it was first excavated, the frog’s skin was still soft and shiny. It wasn’t until two days later that it actually died.
A 2 Million-Year-Long Sleep
The sudden death of the frog left the geologist deeply puzzled. Until scientists conducted radiocarbon dating, they discovered that the mine was over 2 million years old. The frog may have been buried since the formation of the mine. In other words, the frog had likely lived in the mine for over 2 million years.
The frog had been in the mine for 2 million years. (Illustration: Baidu)
Thus, the frog had been here for a long time in a state of hibernation and did not die. Such resilience is certainly one of the most puzzling phenomena in biological history. Indeed, hibernating frogs are not a new discovery.
In the 16th century, a record by the surgeon Ambroise Paré, the personal physician of King Henry III of England, describes a bricklayer who accidentally dropped a stone on a frog. Immediately, the frog lay motionless, but just a moment later, it woke up and jumped away.
In North America, the pygmy manatee, a species of Sirenia, can sleep for over a year under harsh conditions. During this time, their metabolic rate can drop thousands of times, even coming to a complete halt. Therefore, during the dry season, African natives often catch eels and loaches by using hoes. Just below the dry soil are eels and loaches still alive. They are motionless, but not dead; simply placing them in water will revive them within 10 minutes. Scientists refer to this as “cryptobiosis” in hard dry soil.
Eels and loaches also experience a similar “cryptobiosis” under difficult conditions. (Illustration: Baidu)
In an auction in London, England, in 1862, a piece of coal with a hollow imprint of a frog was displayed alongside a frog that had been embedded in it for thousands of years. This piece of coal was found in the New Port coal mine. Shortly after, another frog was found in the Lilishal coal mine in the Paddington area.
In the 18th century, while constructing a stone breakwater along the coast of Toulon, France, workers discovered live eels within the rocky ground. In 1818, a geologist took samples at a depth of 15 meters. He noticed three strange creatures emerging. Two died upon contact with air, but one remained alive when Clark placed it back in the water. Scientists determined that this creature belonged to a species that existed on Earth 10 million years ago.
In early 1856, a group of people used explosives to collapse a large rock outcrop and discovered a creature resembling a dinosaur. It emitted a sound before dying. Due to the lack of means to preserve its body, scientists kept only its bones until today. Archaeologists believe it was a prehistoric flying lizard…
It seems that these creatures, like the 2 million-year-old frog, possess the ability to hibernate indefinitely. Could this be the key to achieving immortality for humans?
The “Key” to Humanity’s Immortality?
Many scientists have begun researching to uncover the true secret behind the frog’s long hibernation lasting millions of years.
Some suggest that the frog being trapped in the mine was the key factor causing it to enter a hibernation state instead of dying. They conducted experiments on other frogs under similar conditions. The results showed that when the surrounding temperature increased by 10 degrees, the frog’s metabolic rate surged by 2-3 times. When the temperature decreased by 10 degrees, their metabolic demands slowed down to only one-third of the normal rate.
Many scientists have tried various experiments on the miraculous survival ability of frogs. (Photo: Baidu)
However, the temperature in the mine where the frog was buried remained constant, and it was not subjected to any stimuli. The frog was unaffected by sunlight, rain, heat, cold, or wind. Thus, the life of the frog was temporarily paused, avoiding energy loss, allowing it to hibernate without eating for millions of years.
Earlier, an American scientist conducted a similar experiment. He first took a goldfish out of water and dried it before placing it in liquid air. The temperature in the air chamber dropped to minus 200 degrees. After a few seconds, he placed the frozen goldfish back into warm water. Immediately, the fish revived and behaved normally.
French engineer Seghine was even bolder, mixing 20 frogs into cement and turning them into garden statues. Twelve years later, he broke the statues, and of the 20 frogs, 16 had died, but 4 revived after a few dozen minutes.
An image of a frog buried in concrete found in Australia. (Photo: Baidu)
An American named Frank also decided to replicate the experiment in 1852. He drilled several holes in a limestone slab and placed 12 frogs inside. He then sealed the holes with cement. At the same time, he also trapped another 12 frogs in a sandstone block. After many years, he broke open both “prisons,” and remarkably, all 24 frogs revived and behaved normally.
From the results of these studies, it is evident that not only frogs but many animal species possess miraculous survival capabilities. However, can this secret of immortality be applied to humans? This remains a puzzle that no one has solved to date.
