I've found this video on Reddit where they pretend these are frozen fruit flies coming back to life... I didn't find any publication related to this specific experiment. Is this just a fake video?
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$\begingroup$ ! froze grasshoppers in a jar for a few weeks ( home freezer 10 F +/-) .When slowly warmed to room temperature , they began moving. $\endgroup$– blacksmith37Commented Jul 5, 2018 at 15:42
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1 Answer
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Short answer
Short-term freezing kills fruit flies. Long-term cryo-preservation of D. melanogaster is also not possible.
Background
Per a publication of Koštál et al. (2016), long term preservation of insects is only possible for embryos, or larvae in diapause. Indeed, freezing is an effective way to kill adult fruit flies (source: Phys.org)
However, D. melanogaster adults show very weak capacity to enter reproductive diapause, and larvae possess absolutely no capacity for diapause Koštál et al., 2016).
Reference
Koštál et al., Scientific Reports (2026); 6: 32346
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$\begingroup$ When I worked in agrocery store I was in charge of taking down the salad bar. Regularly, fruit flies would land on stick to the cold/frozen metal. When the salad bar was turned off, they would fly away. $\endgroup$– peterCommented Jul 7, 2018 at 0:24