Saturday, March 9, 2013

Info Post #1: The Water Bear

Hello! DoomyPanda here. This is my weekly informational post. Today, I'll talk about the not as well-known animal, the water bear.

   They are tiny, eight-legged animals that live in water. They are chubby, and adults are averagely one millimeter long. Another name (and a more official one) you can call them is "Tardigrade"

   They are amazing. Why? I'll tell you why.

    Water bears can live through insanely cold and massively hot temperatures. They can survive extreme pressure, radiation so great that it would kill a human in less than seconds, and have the ability to live comfortably in outer space. That's not all they can do! The water bear can go without any of it's crucial resources (food and water) for years. 

    There was a story that I once heard about a water bear. It was trapped inside a moss display (a food source of the water bear) in a museum, in a sealed glass case. It was only 125 years later did a scientist take the moss out of the glass and dropped a bit of water on it. The water bear woke up and scurried away.

   Despite being a water-dwelling creature, water bears can survive in the driest deserts and coldest climates. They shut down their body, and become… almost dead. They can go on like this for an astounding amount of time. When their body senses water, they wake up.

   Another fact is that water bears are not the product of artificial gene alterations. They were not created in labs. There are fossils of their ancestors dating back to the Cambrian period; when shelled organisms such as Trilobites thrived.

I hope you enjoyed this post. :)

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