Tardigrades—“water bears”—are amazing. They are mostly less than a millimetre in length, but have a complete multicellular anatomy and physiology with recognisable limbs and organs. Despite their complexity they can go dormant and become hardy little spheres of just-add-water life. In this form they are resistant to all sorts of unpleasant treatment and harsh environments. Even active tardigrades can be found everywhere from 6 000m above sea level to 4 000m below. They are extreme animals. If there’s something complicated living Out There In Space, I’d bet on it looking like a tardigrade. If you have a video player that can handle Windows Media you can marvel at a red-eyed tardigrade marching, but there are lots of still pictures and tardigrade facts here and here.
11Apr05 — 6
As a non-scientist I had no idea that these little creatures existed, and I hope to show the red-eyed tardigrade images to my kids – unfortunately the other sites don’t seem to work for me – using the Konqueror browser in SuSE Linux 9.1. Got codecs to handle most Windows Media files, but not the ones at http://www.baertierchen.de/intro2_engl.html
A fascinating insight, and thanks!
These are SOOOO cute, especially on the video! Thanks for introducing them to us.
You’re welcome, Eve.
Sadly, John, the only way I could get Windows video codecs to work under SuSE Linux (9.2) was to compile them by hand for the Kaffeine player myself and make that my default viewer. I vaguely remember it was a fussy little chore—which I should have documented in more detail for people like you. I can only reassure you that it can be done. I might put a page up describing how at some point.
this is a good and pretty reliable source from what i hav read on your site and from compareing it to the others i have been to. also those links that you had we very reliable and came in handy when i needed them for my research paper.
[…] ago, PooterGeek featured the “Exxxtreme Mini-Bears”, tiny, hardy, beautiful living creatures called tardigrades. Turns out they are even hardier than […]