What are Tardigrades?
Tardigrades (Waterbears) are a phylum of invertebrate animals, belonging to the articulata and containing app. 750 species. They are a sister group to arthropoda, though some aspects remind to nematods. Tardigrades are quite small meiofaunal animals, the body length ranges between 0.08 mm and 1.5 mm. They have usually four pair of legs (in some species a reduction occurs) and a nervous system with ventral ganglia and a lobed brain. The body is covered with a cuticle that is shed several times during development . The cuticle is chitinous. There is no metamorphosis, though young tardigrades may look slightly different to adults. Tardigrades are oviparous. Some species are facultative parthenogenic, some may be obligatoric parthenogenetic. The fertilization may be internal or external. Tardigrades occur in quite different, also very extreme – environments, from deep sea to the highest mountains, from the tropic to the arctic and antarctic. All Tardigrades are bound to water (marine or fr
Tardigrades (sometimes called “water bears”) are small (0.1 – 1.5 mm), often microscopic arthropod-like organisms that superficially resemble a cross between a bear and a bug. Tardigrades can be found in large numbers on lichens and mosses, though they are found everywhere. A small clump of moss may have a few thousand tardigrades. Scientists often find tardigrades by soaking a piece of moss in fresh water. Tardigrades are most famous for their extreme hardiness. They are found on practically every square meter of the Earth’s surface, from the sea floor, where the ambient pressure is as much as 1000 times the surface, to the top of the Himalayan mountains, where there is a third less oxygen than at sea level. Tardigrades have been found beneath layers of ice meters thick and in hot springs with a temperature above the boiling point of water. Tardigrades are among the few animals, including rotifers, nematodes, and brine shrimp, which are capable of going into a state of suspended anima
Tardigrades are invertebrate animals (those without a backbone) that compose a taxonomic phylum Tardigrada. More than 1,000 species of tardigrades have been recorded so far. Their body length ranges from 0.1 to 1.0 millimeter. They are found all over the world and live in a variety of environments from the ocean depths to high mountains. Terrestrial tardigrades are usually found in mosses, lichens, or soils. All tardigrade species need water surrounding them to be active, even the terrestrial species.
” I found this on Wikepedia, Tardigrades or water bears comprise the phylum Tardigrada. They are small, segmented animals, similar and probably related to the arthropods. Tardigrades were first described by Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773 (kleiner Wasserbär = little water bear). The name Tardigrada means “slow walker” and was given by Spallanzani in 1777. Tardigrades are small animals. The biggest adults may reach a body length of 1.5 mm, the smallest below 0.1 mm. Freshly hatched larvae may be smaller than 0.05 mm. More than 1,000 species of tardigrades have been described. Tardigrades occur over the whole world, from the high Himalaya (above 6,000 m) to the deep sea (below 4,000 m) and from the polar regions to the equator. The most convenient place to find tardigrades is on lichens and mosses. Other environments are dunes, beaches, soil and marine or freshwater sediments, where they may occur quite frequently (up to 25,000 animals per litre). So, um, there you have it.
