Tardigrades - nicknamed “water bears” - are chubby, eight-legged animals smaller than a grain of sand. They are probably the toughest animals on Earth.
When things get harsh, a tardigrade curls into a dried-out ball called a “tun”, almost completely shutting down. In this state they’ve survived being heated past boiling, frozen near absolute zero, blasted with radiation, and even exposed to the airless vacuum of space on the outside of a rocket.
Add a drop of water and, even years later, they puff back up and carry on as if nothing happened.
