About 1,500 species of plump, eight-legged micro-animals, usually about 0.5 mm long, also called water bears or moss piglets. They live almost everywhere, from mountaintops and rainforests to the deep sea and Antarctica, and are among the toughest animals known.
Quick answers
What is it?Tardigrade
Carnivore?Omnivore
Dangerous?No
Domesticated?No
Awake when?Day & night
Hibernates?No
Kept as a pet?No
Do people eat it?No
At a glance
Found inWorldwide
HabitatRainforest, Mountains, Rivers & lakes, Open ocean, Polar
ColoursClear, Brown
SizeTiny
LengthUsually about 0.5 mm; 0.05–1.3 mm
Legs8
Covered inSkin
Lives alone
Lives for3–30 months
Can swim
Lays eggs
In the wild
- Where it lives
- Worldwide, on land, in fresh water and in the sea; easiest to find in moss and lichen.
- What it eats
- Fluids sucked out of plant and animal cells after piercing them with a pair of needle-like stylets, or detritus.
Did you know
Survives boiling, freezing, radiation and the vacuum of space.
Dried out into a "tun", it can go years without food or water and survive −272 °C to +149 °C for short periods.
In 2007 dried tardigrades spent 10 days exposed to space on the FOTON-M3 mission.
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