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Listen my children and you shall hear about the toughest animal in the world, Tardigrades. The word tardigrade comes from the latin word tardigradus meaning slow moving. Tardigrades, otherwise known as water bears, are microscopic animals that live in the water and in the soil. Tardigrades can be found all over the world from the highest reaches of the Himalayan mountains to the deepest ocean depths. There is little doubt that Tardigrades can be put into a category of being one of the earliest animals on planet earth.
Tardigrades, range in size from 0.05mm to 1.5 mm, which is about half the size of an Argentine ant. Despite their small size, Tardigrades can survive the harshest of environments. Tardigrades can survive up to 1000 times the radiation that other animals have been known to survive. They can tolerate extreme temperatures from close to absolute zero at -459 degrees Fahrenheit to as hot as 304 degrees Fahrenheit. Under total dessication they have been reported to survive for up to ten years but may survive much longer. Tardigrades can enter a state of crypotbiosis which is a state of suspended metabolism. Cryptobiosis allows tardigrades to essentially live forever until the environmental conditions can once again support the animal.
Tardigrades have been the subject of intense study as scientists try and understand how they have been able to inhabit the entire planet in some very extreme conditions. Tardigrades have even been taken to space and survived the dry conditions of deep vacuum and the harmful solar and galactic radiation. Research into what makes these animal tick is ongoing.
I was lucky enough to see tardigrades under a microscope while I was working in the department of nematology at UCR. We were working on a project to report on the nematodes that were found in the soil with reference to pathogenic forms. The tardigrades were captured incidentally while using a specific method of extraction to isolate nematodes out of the soil. I had only read about tardigrades up to that point. I was delighted to see them with my own eyes. It was a pleasure to find the tardigrades in the same filtration process as the nematodes. I look forward to finding out more about tardigrades as new information comes to light.
