Tardigrades
One of the most extreme and
adapted animals.
Classifications
Classifications:
Kingdom: Animal
Phylum: Tardigrada
Class:Heterotardigrada
Order:Echiniscoidea
Family:Echiniscidae
Genus:Echiniscis
Species: Echiniscis
Habitat
Tardigrades can be found almost everywhere on Earth! Tardigrades
have been seen from mountain tops to very deep seas, from moss
to freezing waters in Antarctic! Most species of Tardigrades live in
freshwater or semi aquatic areas. Most species of Tardigrades can
easily be found living in a layer of water on lichens and mosses, as
well as sand, soil and dead leaves on the ground. It even be living in
your house! Right now!
Moss
Tardigrade
in its habitat
eating moss
A picture of a Tardigrade through a low power microscope
How it lives and its diet
There’s not a lot to say on how it lives, Tardigrades just eat and walk around for
more food. But in dangerous situations what makes the Tardigrades unique is
their ability called cryptobiosis (krip-toe-bye-oh-sihs) But we’ll get to that
ability later. To eat they use a special spikes that allows them to eat the
animal or plant cell fluids, an then a “sucker” picks up the fluids. The “sucker’
is different according the creatures diet. The creatures diet depends on what
species of Tardigrade
Nematode
Tardigrades aren’t very picky when they eat! Their diet includes…
Bacteria
Plants
Fluids from animals (Only some species do this)
Other Tardigrades! (Only some species do this)
Nematodes (little worms)
Tardigrade
Moss
A tardigrades mouth aka
“sucker”
Adaptations
Tardigrades have a special ability called cryptobiosis (krip-toe-bye-ohsihs)
Simply put, it allows the tardigrade to withstand a lot of extreme
situations that would normally kill most animals. When they do this
their water content goes from 85% to 3%. It’s actually insanely hard
to kill a tardigrade.
Temperature: 151°C to −273°C (-273°C is almost absolute zero)
Pressure: Extremely low pressure of a vacuum and 1,200 atmospheric
pressure.
Starvation and dehydration : Up to 10 years with no water and food,
highest record of survival is a 120 year old tardigrade.
Radiation: 1000 times more radiation than a elephant, also taridgrades
can repair DNA after exposure to UV radiation.
Outer space: Amazingly Tardigrades are the first known animal to
survive in space, but they can stay alive for only for 10 days
Food chain
Bacteria
The great white shark
Sun
The great white shark
Animal cells
Tardigrade
Whales
Whales
Amoebas
Plant cells
Zoo plankton
Nemotodes
Fish
Human activity and climate change
effects on the Tardigrade’s habitat
Tardigrade habitats aren’t really threatened by human activity, but a lot
of Tardigrade species live on moss. So if we keep using moss killing
products some Tardigrades might lose a home, but it doesn’t really
matter to the Tardigrades. Even when you destroy a Tardigrade’s
habitat it doesn’t really matter because of the Tardigrade’s
cryptobiosis ability. Tardigrades live in oceans and if you were to try
to pollute the ocean it would not really affect the Tardigrade, it might
affect other aquatic animals but the Tardigrade would not care
because of it’s cryptobiosis ability. Tardigrades also live on moss in
forests, if we cut down forests and pave the area we might lose a lot
of species of Tardigrades. Moss grows on buildings as well, if we
remove building and dispose of that moss the Tardigrades would
lose a home
Climate change would not even affect a Tardigrade, they can survive
just a degree above absolute zero and up to 151°C. But moss would
just die at those temperatures while oceans would freeze or
evaporate.
Suggestions to protect the
Tardigrade’s habitat
Note: Tardigrades can live almost everywhere, we don’t actually need to help protect the Tardigrade’s habitat
but this part was required for the science project and I had no choice
• We could reduce the amount of using moss killing chemicals.
• We could reduce the amount of forests being cut down and paved.
• We could leave moss where it was.
• If there was a forest fire it would burn the moss and leave the Tardigrades
homeless, so we could attempt to stop forest fires and reduce the amount
of fires and the risks of fires
• Moss needs water to survive, if we remove wetlands that contains tons of
water a Tardigrade would lose a home.
Useless facts about the Tardigrade
• Tardigrades might be aliens from another plant due to it’s amazing
ability to withstand space!
• The Tardigrades can be 0.5mm after being fully grown
• All Tardigrades are the same gender!
• A Tardigrade lifespan is 3 years, when cryptobiosis kicks in
Tardigrades can live over 100 years!
• Tardigrades have been found in Antarctica under 5m of ice!
Thanks For Watching My
Presentation!
By:Kenson
Sources and other stuff
•
•
http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/tardigrade/index.html
http://animals.jrank.org/pages/1728/Water-Bears-Tardigrada-BEHAVIOR-REPRODUCTION.html
•
http://www.wikihow.com/Find-and-Care-for-a-Pet-Tardigrade-%28-Water-Bear-%29
•
http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/s2008/shifflet_bran/nutrition.htm
•
http://www.cracked.com/article_18471_5-animals-that-are-terrifyingly-hard-to-kill.html
•
http://www.ask.com/question/what-does-bacteria-eat
•
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI0gKXnmgdQ
•
http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/s2008/shifflet_bran/WhatElse.htm