BY KAIA KARPE
STAFF WRITER
Staff Writer
Tardigrades are eight-legged micro-creatures with four to eight claws on each hand, also known as Water Bears. Tardigrades can live in water, moss, and lichens on trees. They can survive space, years of dehydration, and asteroid impacts. They may be able to survive asteroids like the ones that led the dinosaurs to extinction. Tardigrades can go up to thirty years without food; they can survive deep in the sea, in volcanoes, and in Arctic temperatures! Experts say that the Tardigrade’s lineage began 520 million to 100 million years ago. The only thing that may wipe out the Tardigrades is the death of the sun. Tardigrades eat cellular fluids. The Tardigrade can range from 0.05 mm to 1.2 mm long. Tardigrades were discovered by Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773. Also, in 1776, Italian clergyman and biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani discovered that water bears survive extreme conditions by making a transformation.
Works Cited
“Cold, Stunned Iguanas Are Falling from Trees in Florida.” The Washington Post. WP Company. Accessed February 7, 2020. http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/local/weather/cold-stunned-iguanas-are-falling-from-trees-in-florida/2020/01/22/07a23a40-853b-4ba4-8393-6a9db85a2837_video.html.
“Facts About Tardigrades.” LiveScience. Purch. Accessed February 10, 2020. https://www.livescience.com/57985-tardigrade-facts.html.
O’Neill, Mike. “Researchers Discover How ‘Water Bears’ Survive Extreme Conditions.” SciTechDaily, October 1, 2019. https://scitechdaily.com/researchers-discover-how-water-bears-survive-extreme-conditions/.
Smith, Casey. “These ‘Indestructible’ Animals Would Survive a Planet-Wide Apocalypse.” ‘Indestructible’ Tardigrades Would Survive a Planet-Wide Apocalypse, April 23, 2018. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/tardigrades-water-bears-extinction-earth-science/.
Wright, Jeremy. “Tardigrada (Water Bears).” Animal Diversity Web. Accessed February 7, 2020. https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Tardigrada/#lifespan_longevity.
Image from:
https://www.livescience.com/indestructible-tardigrades-cannot-survive-heat.html