The bdelloids cope with such crises by hunkering into a dehydrated, dormant state, like instant coffee, in which they can survive for as long as nine years. When the water returns, they rehydrate and come alive. Another oddity of the bdelloids is that they reproduce without sex. Females give birth to females, no fertilization necessary. The fancy term for that is parthenogenesis. A male bdelloid has never been seen. Genetic evidence suggests that bdelloids have gone without sex for twenty-five million years—quite
