Tardigrada, The Strongest Animal on Earth in Extreme Conditions

The size of this animal is super small, only about 0.5 mm. But It resistance to heat and cold is amazing. It can survive even if frozen at a temperature of -200 °C or heated at a temperature of 150 °C.

Because of very small size, this animal is very hard to be seen with the naked eye, but these animals can be found in almost any altitude, 6000 m above sea level to the bottom of the ocean (4000 m below sea level).

TARDIGRADA strongest animal on earth

Tardigrada name comes from the word meaning TARDOS mean Walkers, and  GRADOS that means Slow. This animal is extremely slow.
In English, this animal is called WATER BEAR. Called so because It shape is similar to bears and their habitat in the water, fresh or salty.

This animal was first identified and described in 1773 by Johann August Wphraim Goeze, an animal researcher and priest from Germany. Until now there are about 1,000 known species of Tardigrada in the world.

In addition to live in environments with extreme temperatures, these animals can survive in extreme atmospheric environment. Based on research conducted by the Department of Biology University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, USA, this animal proved to be dead when inserted into a vacuum for eight days!

These animals did not die when inserted into the pressurized container above 1200 times the normal atmospheric pressure!
Other privileges, It was able to survive in dry conditions without water for years. Also in ultraviolet radiation exposure conditions thousands of times above the normal limit. Even It did not immediately die when boiled with alcohol!

How these animals can be so strong? The answer lies in the ability to regulate metabolism. While in extreme conditions, It would change the metabolism speeds to a hundred times slower than normal metabolism. That change makes it able to survive without water, air, at high temperatures, and low temperature. In this condition, the signs of life is gone despite the fact It don’t die.

As metabolic rate falls, he also did a lot of adjustments. Its legs were pulled into his body. Then the body will be rolled into balls with a strong surface layer is protected by a kind of wax. Water that lost in body fluids are replaced with specific sugar, called Trihalos. As the body loses water, Trihalos will form a gel that protects the body from the drought. In addition, Trihalos also serves as a source of energy.

Tardigrada from the front

With these abilities, Tardigrada predicted to survive during a nuclear war. He is also suspected to survive if released in space!

AMAZING FACTS right?

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