World’s Toughest Living CreatureTardigrades or the water bears are found almost anywhere – 18,

World’s Toughest Living CreatureTardigrades or the water bears are found almost anywhere – 18,196 feet up in the Himalayas, Japanese hotsprings, 3150 meters into the abyssal plains of the Gulf of Mexico, and the inland nunataks (glacial islands, surrounded by ice sheets) of Ellsworth Land, Antarctica. They can be heated to a temperature of 150 degrees centigrade, withstand huge amounts of radiation, and also can be frozen to almost absolute zero. In 2007, thousands of tardigrades were attached to a satellite and sent to outer space, and on their return many of them survived. Some of the females had also laid eggs and given birth to healthy young ones born in space.Yes, these are the toughest living creatures known to humankind and they have thrived in our planet for the last 500 million years surviving 5 major extinctions. The oldest fossils of tardigrades have been dated to the Cambrian period when the first complex animals were evolving. These small animals (largest not more than 1.5mm long) occupy a diversity of niches in the marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments throughout the world. There have been a record of 900 species so far, with many more expected as scientists investigate new habitats.These water bears feed by sucking on moss, algae, and lichens and the carnivores among the tardigrade species feed on other vulnerable tardigrades. The water bears require water to be active. However, they can seemingly survive months without water. Tardigrades dry-out retracting their head and legs and curling up into a dry husk – commonly known as ‘tun’. During this time, it enters a deep state of suspended animation that resembles death, using a metabolism of 0.01% of its normal rate. It can remain in a state of ‘tun’ for months before it reanimates itself after it comes in contact with water. The longest recorded state of tun was when tardigrades found in dried moss from museum samples over 120 years were rehydrated by the Italian zoologist Tina Franceschi, in 1948. She observed one of its front legs moving.NateImage Source: Katexic Publications, http://bit.ly/1kbGIWmSource:http://bbc.in/1BB59ClAdditional Reading:http://bit.ly/1kbGMFmhttp://bit.ly/1Ij5washttp://bit.ly/1QTpr10 -- source link

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