Tardigrades

1. Tardigrades One of the most extreme and adapted animals.

2. Classifications Classifications: Kingdom: Animal Phylum: Tardigrada Class:Heterotardigrada Order:Echiniscoidea Family:Echiniscidae Genus:Echiniscis Species: Echiniscis

3. 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! Tardigrade in its habitat eating moss Moss A picture of a Tardigrade through a low power microscope

4. 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 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) Nematodes Moss A tardigrades mouth aka “sucker” Tardigrade

5. Adaptations Tardigrades have a special ability called cryptobiosis (krip-toe-bye-oh-sihs) 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

6. Food chain The great white shark The great white shark Bacteria Sun Animal cells Tardigrade Whales Amoebas Whales Plant cells Zoo plankton Nemotodes Fish

7. 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.

8. Suggestions to protect the Tardigrade’s habitat 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. 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

9. 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!

10. ThanksForWatchingMy Presentation! By:Kenson

11. 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