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introduction to tardigradesTardigrades (also called Moss piglets or Waterbears) is a small, eight legged Creature discovered by Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, he named them kleiner Wasserbär, translated from German to English means "little water bear".
These creatures gained other nick names over the years such as "Moss Piglet and Water Bear". The name Tardigrada meaning "slow stepper" was given by Lazzaro Spallanzani in 1777. Adult Tardigrades have grown up to 1.2 milometers at most and as small as 0.1 mm, newly hatched Tardigrades can be even smaller at 0.05 mm. Around 1,150 species of tardy grate have been documented. Tardigrades can be found all over the world, at altitudes above 20,000 feet to 13,000 feet below sea level and from the from the equator to the the polar regions. Tardigrades are most commonly found on mosses and lichens. People have also found them in other invirerments such as beaches, dunes soil, and salt water or freshwater sediments, where they can be found quite frequently (up to 25,000 animals per liter). Tardigrades can often be found by soaking a piece of moss in spring water. Tardigrade are Phylum and have Strange and unique bodies that have eight legs and feet with four to eight claws per foot, on average they are 0.3 to 0.5 mm long they can also withstand extreme environments that would kill any other animal. In testing some Tardigrade withstood temperatures of close to absolute zero, or 0 Kelvin (−273 °C (−459 °F) and temperatures as high as 151 °C (304 °F) and 1,000 times more radiation than other known animal. They have gone almost ten years without water, recent studies from 2007 have had Tardigrades return alive from a ten days trip in the perfect vacuum of space in low Earth orbit. That makes them the first animal to survive in space which is just amazing. |