Tardigrades 1/13/20

You may have heard the term Water Bear before. That is another name for the Tardigrade. For people who don’t know what a tardigrade is it is a small, near microscopic organism. A tardigrade looks like this;

Tardigrades are often known as ‘the toughest animal on earth’ and this is true to some extent. The Tardigrade is known as the only animal that can survive in the vacuum of space. These tiny creatures, which are about a millimeter in length, have done some extraordinary feats.

However, these creatures don’t wouldn’t survive if you just threw it in the vacuum of space. To survive these situations a tardigrade will form into a tun. It will practically turn itself into a dry husk. When in this state they can survive nearly anything. On the other hand they have to have water to get out of their tun form. Also, when they are out of their tun they can still survive radiation but they aren’t very hard to kill.

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