Table 1. Summary of the applied anhydrobiosis protocols.

In the case of A and B protocols, each plate contained five additional specimens for tuns’ photography under stereomicroscope and tuns’ ultrastructure analysis under transmission electron microscopy.

Protocol	Quantitative details	Mode of dehydration	Substratum
A.	10 repeats, each for 20 individuals	preconditioning	agar layer
	(20 specimens per plate)
B.	5 repeats, each for 50 individuals	slow dehydration	filter paper
	(50 specimens per plate)
C1.	5 repeats, each for 50 individuals	environmental drying	moist fine sand
	(50 specimens per plate)
C2.	5 repeats, each for 50 individuals	environmental drying	sediment from the pond
	(50 specimens per plate)