I thought it would be fitting to start this blog series with the very first micro organism to grace my microscope in my very first year of microscopy! At the time, the tardigrade had not gained such an intriguing following as it has today so no one could identify it for me. Luckily, I tend to be quite tenacious and located it's true identity many months later which has led me into a wonderful love affair with this surprising little creature. The tardigrade is generally a slower mover but I think I may have stunned this one quite a bit while prepping my slide so the poor little soul is especially disoriented and confused in this video and requires some slack on your behalf. Nonetheless, his appearance in my life has been my top microscopy moment thus far! What an auspicious way to start!
So let's meet the amazing tardigrade <3
Physical Characteristics
Despite their fantastically large modern day following, these creatures will never grow larger than 0.04 inches long, if that. Also known as water bears or moss piglets, they have a strangely enticing, familiar and lovable look. Remember the giant caterpillar with the hookah from "Alice in Wonderland"? You can't see it all very well here, but I encourage you to look up internet pictures of these special little guys. I would put them up in this post but I have promised myself to only post pictures and videos that I have personally taken (with the exception of diagrams). This is what you can see from my not as advanced microscope video:
They have four little limbs or lobopods on each side. If you look closely, you can see at least two little claws on the first and last limbs. They are always translucent, here revealing this little lady's ovaries in brown. If you follow the video as it focuses, you can also see her eyes at around 37 seconds in and even catch a small glimpse of her mouth (bottom right). How exciting!
Food
They generally survive by sucking the juices out of algae, lichen, and moss but have been known to be carnivorous and even cannibalistic. As you will see in the next section, they are crazy survivors and hence won't draw the line at eating their own kind if they had to.
Habitat
The most amazing thing about these weird and surprising little bears or piglets is that they can survive just about anywhere under just about any condition. They have been found in temperatures a cold as -328 degrees Fahrenheit and as hot as 300 degrees (Smithsonian Magazine). They have been found surviving radiation, boiling liquids, massive amounts of pressure and even the vacuum of space without any protection (Current Biology).
Moral of the story: water bears will survive long after humanity has gone (probably along with cockroaches) so be nice to these microbes and arthropods! They are the biggest chance for continued life on earth.
Ps. We did not make up the above stated assumption. There has actually been a whole study done on realistic end of life scenarios published online on July 14, 2017, in the journal Scientific Reports. Check it out for yourself!
