Eremina desertorum

Eremina desertorum (formerly Helix desertorum) is a species of land snails in the genus Eremina.

A specimen from Egypt, in the British Museum, and thought to be dead, was glued to an index card in March 1846. However, in March 1850, it was nevertheless found to be alive. The Canadian writer Grant Allen observed:

"The Museum authorities accordingly ordered our friend a warm bath (who shall say hereafter that science is unfeeling!), upon which the grateful snail, waking up at the touch of the familiar moisture, put his head cautiously out of his shell, walked up to the top of the basin, and began to take a cursory survey of British institutions with his four eye-bearing tentacles. So strange a recovery from a long torpid condition, only equalled by that of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, deserved an exceptional amount of scientific recognition."

It is reported that the museum specimen was then transferred to a large glass jar where it lived for a further two years subsisting largely on cabbage leaves. During this period it successfully re-entered and left torpor once more.

It was later shown that the species could survive in suspended animation without food or water for even longer. As part of an experiment, 40 snails were put into a tin box in 1904. Approximately 8 years later, in 1912, 10 of them were found to be still alive.