Biological Miracle – Wood Frog

cant even call that hibernation. There are other knock on advantages to bieng frozen solid, it would slow down and even kill a lot of infectious microbes.It may convey a certain life extension benifit. And threre is not much behavioral adaptation needed,frog gets chilly, snuggles under a leaf,freezes solid, gets defrosted 8 months later and wakes up hungry and horny, not bad.

> it would slow down and even kill a lot of infectious microbes

I wouldn't count on it killing them. The cryoprotectants in the frog's body don't discriminate; they'll protect foreign bacteria just as well as the frog's cells.

I should of elaborated, many of the issues associated with,"conventional hibernation" have to do with lethal infections aquired externaly while hibernating, damp, cold, ....mold as to the cryoprotectants ,side protecting microbes, clearly gut microbes and other internal flora ,would benifit......but ,big but, would a sneeky cryosuspension routine also include a freeze and clense cycle?, why not! and easy enough to verify,right!

> It may convey a certain life extension benefit.

I think it would be more interesting if it doesn't affect lifespan. It would be a really counter-intuitive result (to me).

I wonder what happens to the gut bacteria ? Do they also freeze and get thawed ? If so, are those bacterium also having a special adaptation, or is it a function of the host ?

I would imagine the frog's internal ecosystem has co-evolved with lots of bacteria that can also be frozen solid.

either way, or any info that could be gathered about life expectancy due to cryosuspension hibernation, is good, even a null result is data that plays into many conversations about longevity, space travel, temporary medical suspension to buy time. The fact of this type of biological process, moves the brackets quite a bit in how to think about many? all? other biological processes. Here is a little game....try and think about the world from a wood frogs perspective