Tardigrade

The interplanetary ark

Capudinos
3 min readMar 3, 2022
Picture 1. Water bears presentation, maken by the author with Canva app.

This is the penultimate position of the top on strange creatures, which invite by themselves to reflect on extraterrestrial life. In this place it is time to talk about the popular “Tardigrade”: the popular description points to tardigrade as resistant animals capable of surviving extreme climates and long fasts, even resisting exposure to outer space. Although this description is well suited to the reality of the Tardigrade, it covers too little about the animal.

What is a tardigrade?

As mentioned above, tardigrade are incredibly strong creatures despite their small size, barely measuring 500 micrometers. They have 8 legs and an anatomy that superficially resembles that of a bear; however, the name tardigrade is attributed to it to describe “its slow pace”.

How many tardigrades are there?

Although they always mention it as if the tardigrade were a single species of microorganism, the truth is that it is an entire Phylum that encompasses more than 1000 species, with anatomies that differ slightly.

Picture 2. Echiniscus africanus, Photograph taken from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Echiniscus_africanus_(10.3897-evolsyst.3.33580)_Figure_1.jpg
Picture 3. Hypsibius dujardini, Illustration taken from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hypsibiusdujardini.jpg
Picture 4. Echiniscus testudo, Illustration taken from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Echiniscus_L.png
Picture 4. Explanation about the Phylum of tardigrade, elaborated by the author.

Interplanetary ark?

When Tardigrades are in totally adverse conditions, they activate a mechanism called “cryptobiosis”, in which they deactivate their metabolic processes. Mainly, thanks to cryptobiosis, Tardigrades are able to resist in outer space; however, such an amazing mechanism has generated great theories to scientists. In the series “Cosmos: spacetime odyssey” it is mentioned that life could have been transported from one planet to another through rocks that shoot off the planet after the collision of a meteorite and land on another planet (Venus, Mars and Earth, they could have exchanged life), since creatures like Tardigrades are capable of surviving such an extreme journey. This theory is only a speculation that is mentioned in the series, but it does not stop being an extraordinary reminder that the force of life is only limited to the power that evolution offers it.

References:

— Parker, S. (2016). Evolución Toda la Historia (1.a ed.). BLUME, (page 113).

You can find the complete presentation on tardigrades at the following link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CantH1SuB3G/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

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