Five Facts About Water Bears

Meet the tough, tubby tardigrades also known as ‘water bears’ or ‘moss piglets’. These nicknames may not strike fear into the hearts of many but these little plump, eight-legged micro-animals have some truly special abilities that makes them worthy contenders for the world’s hardiest animal.
Fact #01 - Their scientific name Tardigrada literally means “slow stepper”
They were first discovered by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773 who initially dubbed them Kleiner Wasserbär, meaning "little water bear” based on the endearing way they trundle across their chosen habitat. Three years later the term Tardigrada (meaning "slow stepper") was first coined by the Italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani.
Fact #02 - They have survived all five mass extinction events
Yes, they have survived the Ordovician-Silurian extinction events, the Late Devonian extinction, the Permian-Triassic extinction event, the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event and the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.
Tardigrades now form a group of 1,150 species which belong to the phylum Tardigrada, part of the superphylum Ecdysozoa. It is an ancient group, with fossils dating from 530 million years ago, in the Cambrian period when the first complex animals were just evolving. Dinosaurs, in comparison, first appeared about 230 million years ago, making T. rex and co. the relative new kids on the block.
Fact #03 - They can survive temperatures above 150°C and below -200°C
In the 1920s, a Benedictine friar named Gilbert Franz Rahm brought tardigrades back to life after heating them to 151 °C for 15 minutes. The most heat-tolerant organisms known are bacteria that live around the edges of hydrothermal vents in the deep sea. They can still grow at 122 °C. If Rahm is to be believed, tardigrades can survive even higher temperatures.
Rahm also tested them in the cold. He immersed them in liquid air at -200 °C for 21 months, in liquid nitrogen at -253 °C for 26 hours, and in liquid helium at -272 °C for 8 hours. Afterwards the tardigrades sprang back to life as soon as they came into contact with water. To put that into perspective, the lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth was a balmy -89.2 °C in central Antarctica in 1983. The tardigrades coped with a profound chill that at which atoms come to a virtual standstill.
Fact #04 - They can reach a state of suspended animation by dropping metabolism, expelling water and forming a ‘tun’
What makes tardigrades so tough? One word: cryptobiosis. Translated literally, cryptobiosis means “hidden life,” and that’s exactly what it is: a form of suspended animation in which organisms can go on living even as they look dead. To reach this state they reach an advanced state of desiccation by dropping their water content can drop to 1-3 percent of normal and curling into a dehydrated ball, called a tun, by retracting their head and legs. While in cryptobiosis, tardigrades' metabolic activity gets as low as 0.01 percent of normal levels, and their organs are protected by a sugary gel called trehalose. This sugar forms a glass-like state inside their cells that stabilises key components, such as proteins and membranes, which would otherwise be destroyed. New research has found that some tardigrades use a class of proteins called intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) which also form protective glass-like solids.
Fact #005 - In September 2007, researcher launched two species of dehydrated tardigrades into space. After 10 days in orbit, most of the specimens in one species were revived within 30 minutes of being rehydrated.
Back in September of 2007, researchers from Sweden’s Kristianstad University launched two species of dehydrated tardigrades aboard ESA’s FOTON-M3, an unmanned mission that carried varieties of experimental payload. After ten days of orbiting, the FOTON-M3 satellite made its way safely to the Earth. The scientists found that majority of the specimens in one species (around 68 percent) were successfully revived after just 30 minutes of being rehydrated. These specimens even went on to hatch their eggs.
Water bear don’t care.
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Music Credit: Jazz Beat by TROMABEATS ( / tromabeats )
Video Credits (Timestamp/Video link/Channel):
00:10 - • Swimming Tardigrade (Ragdoll Studio LLC)
00:14 - • Deeper, Deeper, Deeper... (National Geographic)
00:25 - • How Dinosaurs Went Ext... (Dinosaurs)
00:34 - • Tardigrade Facts (Industrial0MotionArt)
00:43 - • The Amazing Water Bear... (Craig Smith)
00:49 - • Anhydrobiosis in Tardi... (Daiki D. Horikawa)
Thumbnail Image Credit: Ragdoll Studios LLC (see above)

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