The world’s toughest animal on Earth the tardigrade aka water bear

By Martin Lew

The tardigrade are water creatures that have eight legs and are microscopic creatures. They were named by Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773 who thought they looked like “little water bears”. The name Tardigrada was given in 1777 by Lazzaro Spallanzani. They are really tough. For example, they were known to survive space, extreme temperature, and radiation. They can even withstand six times the depth of the Mariana Trench, a trench that is 36,000 feet underwater! There is almost impossibly no way for you to “kill” a tardigrade because no matter what you do, it will just wiggle back to life. You can find them in moss, ferns, liches, soil, beaches, dunes and any other damp, moist habitat. We have swallowed tardigrades that were on fresh produce or in water. The only thing that it can’t survive is your digestive system. They can’t survive because the stomach is an acidic environment.