Just imagine you could preserve intact organs for Knowledge that we can obtain from tardigrades, are in the field of Dry vaccines don't require refrigeration and thusĬan be delivered and stored at room temperature in the most remoteĭeveloping countries in the World. Non-reducing sugar used by water bears to protect their tissues and DNAĭuring cryptobiosis). In such vaccines water is replaced with trechalose (a Their cryptobiotic properties helped scientists to develop so called As you may already suspect, Tardigrades live on all continents. Have liquid water at least seasonally (such as moss cushions, lichens, The only requirement is that these habitats Although all tardigrades in the active stage need water,īeside the marine and freshwater environments, they can be found in Record-breaking properties, Tardigrades can inhabitĪ huge variety of environments - from the ocean floors (7 km below sea level) up to the high mountain tops (even higher than 6 km above sea level). Hydrated, they exhibited rates of survival close to the individuals that (almost absolute zero)! Tardigrades are so tough that when they haveīeen sent to the outer space and then brought back to Earth and This anabiotic stage they can be exposed to very high X-ray radiation ofĥ70 000 rads (500 would kill a human!), very high pressure or vacuum, finally they can withstand temperatures as high as over plus 150☌ and as low as minus 272.8☌ They don't eat, don't move, and don't breath - in other words their metabolism is undetectable. When cryptobiotic, tardigrades look like they are dead. However, when conditions worsen water bearsĬan dry or freeze - this peculiar form of existence is calledĪnabiosis). when they crawl around, eat and reproduce) they are no tougher Reasons for which water bears are considered weird, is their ability to Some speciesįor some photos of terrestrial tardigrades and their eggs).įrom the book "Tardigrada" by Ernst Marcus, 1929 (click the miniature to view Strategies (including parthenogenesis and hermaphroditism). Water bears also show a variety of reproductive TheyĬome in the variety of colours (transparent, white, red, orange, yellow, Years ago!), and that they belong to the mega-clade Ecdysozoa (moultingįour pairs of legs and a complicated feeding (buccal) apparatus. (the oldest known fossils come from mid Cambrian, ca. Anyway, what is sure is that they are an old group of animals However, both molecular and traditional taxonomy suggests that they are most related either to Arthropods or Given that theirīodies are tiny and soft, they don't fossilise easily and finding anyįossils that somehow survived to our days is like winning a lottery! Here to view the most recent list of all known tardigrade species).Įvolutionary history of tardigrades is mostly a mystery. There are over a 1000 described species soįar, however it is estimated that the total number of tardigrade species Invertebrate Phyla (that means they are not insects, mites orĬrustaceans, they are just tardigrades). In the contemporary taxonomy they are considered as one of the Microscopic animals (their body size varies from 0.05 to 1.2 mm). (Latin: Tardigrada) also known as water bears are
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