Water Bears

So, a while back I read a news article about the toughest animal on earth, these little animals called water bears, and it really interested me, so I decided to write a little summary of what they are.

Water bears, or Tardigrades, have tiny barrel shaped bodies with stubby legs. They grow to about 0.5 millimetres long, although some can reach up to 1.2 millimeters. They live everywhere on earth, usually on moss, on beaches, soil, or dunes, but have also been found in pretty much any place on earth you can think of.

The reason they are found everywhere, and are the “toughest animal on earth”, is because of their ability to drain all water content from their bodies using sugars, turning into a hard shell known as a tun. In this state they can survive temperature close to absolute zero (as cold as it gets), temperatures up to 150 degrees Celsius, pressures six times greater than the deepest ocean trench, radiation hundreds of times the lethal dose for humans, and the vacuum of space. They also don’t age in this state, making their lifespan up to ten billion years. They have also been confirmed to have survived major catalysts, like the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs.

There you have it, the water bear, the toughest creature on earth, a little speck on a leaf.