It's time for a mystery picture. What do you suppose this is?
If you guessed a vacuum cleaner bag, you'd be wrong. This is a tardigrade, or waterbear, next to a piece of moss. The picture is a false-colour electron micrograph of a one-millimeter-long animal.
Tardigrades are known for being polyextremophiles, which can survive incredibly high or low temperatures, radiation or hard vacuum that would kill other lifeforms. They can be dehydrated and kept for years: when rewetted, they simply fill out again and start bumbling along. Tardigrades are found all over the world but most commonly on moss, leading to their other name, moss piglets. I don't think I'm the only one who finds them pretty cute.
There's more information on tardigrades here.
If you guessed a vacuum cleaner bag, you'd be wrong. This is a tardigrade, or waterbear, next to a piece of moss. The picture is a false-colour electron micrograph of a one-millimeter-long animal.
Tardigrades are known for being polyextremophiles, which can survive incredibly high or low temperatures, radiation or hard vacuum that would kill other lifeforms. They can be dehydrated and kept for years: when rewetted, they simply fill out again and start bumbling along. Tardigrades are found all over the world but most commonly on moss, leading to their other name, moss piglets. I don't think I'm the only one who finds them pretty cute.
There's more information on tardigrades here.
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