The World's Most Indestructible Worm!
The world's most indestructible worm is called a water bear, or scientifically known as the tardigrade. This creature was discovered and named by Johann August Ephraim Goeze, in 1773. The water bear has so many crazy abilities which will be shared in this post. Let's start off with its appearance.
The water bear has a very different and fascinating appearance. It has hands with four to eight claws, squishy, soft looking folds of skin, and sharp teeth. Its size ranges between 0.05 mm to 1.2mm.
Believe it or not, but the the water bear can survive in the most craziest environments such as in an active volcano, being in space, submerged into boiling water, withstand high volumes of radiation and extreme amounts of pressure!
This creature can survive in extreme temperatures as cold as -458 degrees F and high temperatures of 300 degrees Fahrenheit. The reason why they can survive so many extreme temperatures, is because they go into a death like state that is called cryptobiosis, in which they retract their head and legs and curl themselves into what is called a tun. When they are in the cryptobiosis state, their organs are protected by trehaloe, which is said to be a sugary gel. So,in order for them to not curl up into a tun, they have a coating of water all over them at all times.
How do they protect themselves from radiation? They produce a protein that protects their DNA called Dsup, which is short for damage suppressor.
These amazing creatures can reproduce in two ways, asexual and sexual reproduction! To prove that these creatures can survive any environment, there was a study done by a group of scientists where they sent water bears into to space to see if they would survive and when they came back, they noticed that a few of the female water bears had not only survived the trip, but had actually laid eggs while in space and that the eggs were healthy!
I hope you enjoyed reading this short post and learned a thing or two.
Image sources:
