This article is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Carla Helfferich is a science writer at the Institute.
Houseflies seem to have a mysterious power to transcend the cold.
Give them a little heat, and they'll behave in January as if it were August. Earlier this winter, an acquaintance heated up an outbuilding that had been chilled to 20 below, and found the place buzzing with dozens of thawed-out flies within just a few hours. Many northern buggy beasts can live in deathlike dormancy through bitter cold, then thaw into pestiferous life as soon as temperature permits. Our multilegged denizens aren't the only ones to master the freeze-thaw life cycle. It's possible to find frozen frogs, showing all the vital signs of granite, burrowed into the equally frozen mud in some Interior lakes.