Affectionately called "Water Bears" for their pudgy, clawed legs, and bear-like appearance. Tardigrades are one of the smallest animals in the world usually only measuring around 1mm in length. Despite being so petite, they're are tougher than nails, and have 'super powers' that make them nearly invulnerable. They have existed for over 500 million years, and can even survive the vacuum of space!
pastor and zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze named them such due to the way they walk, and the way they look like tiny bears with eight legs ending in large claws. There are over 1,000 species of tardigrades, and every individual of a given species will have the same number of cells.
They have a tubular mouth surrounded by spear-like stomatostylets able to pierce cells, exposing their yummy innards. Most species feast on moss and lichen, though some eat bacteria, and others are carnivorous, even eating other tardigrades!
At birth, they already possess all of their adult cells, and grow through a process called hypertrophy, up to 1.5mm when fully grown. Tardigrades have a hard but flexible exoskeleton called a cuticle, and as it grows into adulhood, the tardigrade will molt, or shed, this cuticle. When it sheds this outer shell, females will leave behind eggs to be fertilized, where the male comes along and just covers the whole thing in sperm and hopes for the best... It works, though, and when little baby water cubs are born, they can be as small as 0.05mm.
Tardigrades are masters of survival, living in nearly every nook and cranny on the planet. They live in incredible numbers within the mosses of the world, but have been found on the tops of the some of the tallest mountains, at the bottom of the ocean, in hotsprings, and even in Antarctica, buried under ice!
When they're moist and comfortable, they'll waddle around eating, growing, fighting, and mating, you know, the usual. Tardigrades have a strong will to stay alive, and when the going gets tough, these brutes exhibit awesome superpowers of self preservation, shriveling up into an ametabolic state known as cryptobiosis, thought to be able to 'hibernate' for over a century, patiently awaiting the return of better days.
It's in this state that many tardigrades are nearly indestructable, and scientists have certainly been surprised when putting them through the gauntlet. Some can withstand incredibly high or low temperatures, swim in toxic substances like alcohol or ether, stand strong under enormous pressure, shrug off radioactive bombardment, and even survive after being exposed to the vacuum of space! This has led some researchers to conclude that tardigrades could be the only thing that survives a global cataclysm.
It's crazy to think such a tiny little creature could be so strong. Without a doubt, tardigrades will live on well into the future, and even if we blow the planet up, they probably wouldn't care, and just float through space to go live on mars.
Tardigrade from christi denton on Vimeo.
