Here’s the water bear I was talking about during the discussion of durable lifeforms.
There are report of tardigrade species being present at hot springs, mountain tops, layers of ice, ocean sediments, lakes, ponds, plains, and even man-made structures such as stonewalls a roofs.
Supposedly they can survive extreme temperatures from 151 celsius to -200 celsuius
High levels of radiation. — 5,000 lethal doses of gamma rays, 6,200 doses of heavy ions,
high amount of pressure – 1,200 time atmospheric pressure and 6,000 atmospheres ( six times the pressure experienced in the Mariana trench
Dehydration – for up to 12o years
Environmental toxins
and The vacuum of deep space
by dispelling 70% of it body water and by doing so by entering a state of either enter a state of anhydrobiosis, cryobioisis, osmobiosis, or anoxiobiosis; to which their metabolism reduces to less than 0.01% that it is normally. So long as they have a supply of trehalose, a non-reducing sugar, in their bodies they can hold that state until their environment changes to that of a habitable one.
They are microscopic and inhabit most if not all forms of lichens and mosses, which are they’re food sources as well.The first tardigrades were discovered by Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773. Hundreds of species tardigrades have been discovered ever since. Over 500 species have been found, possess lobopodial limbs, have buccopharyngeal membranes, and have shelss made up of chitin and protien. Like fingernails! Some species can be made up of as many as 40,000 cells,they are also parthenogenetic and oviparous.
Tardigrades, surprisingly enough, haven’t been identified in the evolutionary chain. Many morphological and molecular studies are being conducted, but the only answer they have come up with so far is that they are either closely related to nematodes or arthropods. But even then they threw out the nematode theory. The molecular size of tardigrades make the process of determining relation very difficult.
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