The hydra’s amazing resilience challenges ideas that all living things must die

The idea that living organisms are born to reproduce and ultimately die is one of the most common and widely accepted ideas about life across cultures. But is it true? Using whimsical animation, The Animal That Wouldn’t Die explores the strange case of the hydra – a creature that seems to play by a different set of rules than anything else in nature. Following the work of two scientists separated by many generations, this documentary investigates the surprising regenerative power of the small fresh water animal, and how the concept of the ‘circle of life’ might not be as universal as we once thought.