Tardigrada

Tardigrades (/ˈtɑːrdɪɡreɪd/), known colloquially as water bears or moss piglets, are a phylum of water-dwelling eight-legged segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, who called them little water bears. In 1777, the Italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani named them Tardigrada, which means slow steppers. They have been found everywhere, from mountaintops to the deep sea and mud volcanoes, from tropical rain forests to the Antarctic. Tardigrades are among the most resilient animals known, with individual species able to survive extreme conditions—such as exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures (both high and low), air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation—that would quickly kill most other known forms of life. Tardigrades have even survived exposure to outer space. About 1,150 known species form the phylum Tardigrada, a part of the superphylum Ecdysozoa. The group includes fossils dating from 530 million years ago, in the Cambrian period. Tardigrades are usually about 0.5 mm (0.02 in) long when fully grown. They are short and plump, with four pairs of legs, each ending in claws (usually four to eight) or sucking disks. Tardigrades are prevalent in mosses and lichens and feed on plant cells, algae, and small invertebrates. When collected, they may be viewed under a very low-power microscope, making them accessible to students and amateur scientists. Johann August Ephraim Goeze originally named the tardigrade kleiner Wasserbär, meaning 'little water-bear' in German (today, they are often referred to in German as Bärtierchen or 'little bear-animal'). The name Tardigradum means 'slow walker' and was given by Lazzaro Spallanzani in 1776. The name 'water-bear' comes from the way they walk, reminiscent of a bear's gait. The biggest adults may reach a body length of 1.5 mm (0.059 in), the smallest below 0.1 mm. Newly hatched tardigrades may be smaller than 0.05 mm. Tardigrades are often found on lichens and mosses. Other environments are dunes, beaches, soil, leaf litter, and marine or freshwater sediments, where they may occur quite frequently (up to 25,000 animals per litre). Tardigrades, in the case of Echiniscoides wyethi, may be found on barnacles. Tardigrades can be often found by soaking a piece of moss in water. Tardigrades have barrel-shaped bodies with four pairs of stubby legs. Most range from 0.3 to 0.5 mm (0.012 to 0.020 in) in length, although the largest species may reach 1.2 mm (0.047 in). The body consists of a head, three body segments each with a pair of legs, and a caudal segment with a fourth pair of legs. The legs are without joints, while the feet have four to eight claws each. The cuticle contains chitin and protein and is moulted periodically. The first three pairs of legs are directed downward along the sides, and are the primary means of locomotion, while the fourth pair is directed backward on the last segment of the trunk and is used primarily for grasping the substrate. Tardigrades lack several Hox genes and a large intermediate region of the body axis. In insects, this corresponds to the entire thorax and the abdomen. Practically the whole body, except for the last pair of legs, is made up of just the segments that are homologous to the head region in arthropods.