Study
Freeze tolerance in animals
Storey, Kenneth B.; Storey, Janet M.
Physiological Reviews, 1988
Reviews the biochemistry of animals that survive the freezing of their body water, covering where ice is permitted to form, the cryoprotectants that accumulate, and the controls that keep ice out of cells.
- Studied in
- Animalia
- Sample size
- review across invertebrates and vertebrates
Freeze-tolerant animals permit ice in extracellular spaces while keeping cells themselves unfrozen, accumulate low-molecular-weight cryoprotectants such as glucose and glycerol, and frequently use proteins that deliberately start ice formation in safe locations at high sub-zero temperatures.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Freeze tolerance is a controlled process rather than an endurance of uncontrolled freezing; the location and rate of ice formation are managed.
How NatureHQ reads it
The record behind the most counter-intuitive statement on these pages: that some animals make themselves freeze on purpose, early, because a slow controlled freeze at −1 °C is survivable and a sudden one at −8 °C is not.
- A 1988 review; the molecular detail has advanced considerably, though the framework has held.
- The best-studied freeze-tolerant animals are a small and unrepresentative set of species.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Freeze tolerance
An animal facing sub-zero temperatures either stops ice forming or permits it. These are opposite solutions: one group removes everything ice could start from, the other makes proteins whose job is to start it.
Wood frog
A frozen wood frog has ice through roughly two-thirds of its body water, no heartbeat and no breathing, for weeks — and thaws into a working frog. The ice is outside its cells, and it is flooded with glucose.
Published by: Learned society journalsPublished in a learned society journal.
doi.org/10.1152/physrev.1988.68.1.27
Checked against Crossref on 2026-09-28, and they agree on the title, the authors and the year.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-09-03.