Water Bear - The World’s Toughest Animal

Abstract

Tardigrades or “Moss Piglets” are microscopic animals found worldwide in aquatic as well as terrestrial ecosystems. Tardigrades, commonly known as water-bears, are among the most desiccation and radiation-tolerant animals and have been shown to survive extreme levels of ionizing radiation. Tardigrades are uniquely adapted to a range of environmental extremes. Importantly, recent research has shown that tardigrades even in their active states may be extremely tolerant to environmental stress, including anoxic conditions, vacuums, handling extreme levels of ionizing radiation, large fluctuation in external salinity and avoiding freezing by super-cooling to below -20 °C.