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HISTORY HABITAT SCIENTIFIC
STUDY
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Ability to Adapt |
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The most amazing thing about water tardigrades is that they have the ability to adapt to almost any environment. Tardigrades have been discovered on just about every continent on Earth. There are approximately 700 known species of tardigrades and each is specifically adapted to its ecosystem. Tardigrades are most commonly found in moss, lichens, and liverworts. They can be both seawater animals as well as freshwater animals depending on where they live, but most are freshwater creatures. Their main foods are algae and moss leaves so there are more plentiful in areas where the climate is warm and damp. Terrestrial tardigrades have the highest ability to resist extreme weather conditions. Some species have been revived after dormancy for over 100 years. Others can survive in temperatures as low as -200 degrees Celsius. for more than twenty days. Tardigrades are also the only animal that can survive having their pictures taken with a Scanning Electron Microscope. These pictures are taken by bombarding the specimen with millions of electrons while inside of a vacuum. Similar ones can survive X-Rays 250 times more than what can kill a mammal. Tardigrades have the ability to withstand such conditions by transforming to dry state called Cryptobiosis. They simply take on a dehydrated form and the only thing needed to revive them from their dormancy is as a drop of water. As mentioned earlier they can be found anywhere. If you have moss growing somewhere near your house chances are that you have a few water bears in there too. Water bears have even been found in the middle of the ocean. What is so surprising about this discovery is that they cannot swim! How, you ask? The tiny soldiers were found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean floating atop Sargasso algae. So to conclude this lesson, the Tardigrada is the most adaptable, the most withstanding, and definitely the toughest living organism out there!
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