#milnesium

“Here you can see its little legs at work as the tardigrade amble across the slide. It's like watching your cat's paws from underneath a glass table, but instead of toe beans, you got micro claws.”

Journey to the Microcosmos- Some Water Bears Live on Land

CC: “Here's a quick German lesson for you. Did you know that the original name given to tardigrades in 1773 was "kleiner Wasserbar", which translates to "little water bear”?”

Journey to the Microcosmos- Some Water Bears Live on Land

Images Originally Captured by Jam’s Germs

“The ones we find usually belong to one of two genera, both of which you can see here. That reddish one is in the genus Ramazottius. And the other one is Milnesium. The name of the Ramazottius genus comes from Giuseppe Ramazzotti, who was a tardigradologist, which--yes-- is the actual name of an actual job. And their reddish color comes from pigments in their cuticle, which is basically, their exoskeleton. We think this color might be a way to protect the inside of the tardigrade from the sun's radiation... basically, tardirade sunscreen! Whether or not that is true, we can certainly appreciate how the colors make it look like a ruddy, half-transclucent alligator with way too many legs.“

Journey to the Microcosmos- Some Water Bears Live on Land

“On the science side, terrestrial tardigrades may be easier for us to find and gather, but moss samples can be tricky to work with. They contain lots of remains from other animals that live in trees along with tons of bacteria, which divide really fast and consume all the oxygen on the slide, suffocating other life like our water bears. We don't have this same challenge with their freshwater counterparts, so it's easy for us to keep them alive in our slides to watch for months. And that is why we've been able to document everything from their mating habits to their hatching eggs to their food--it's like our own little tardigrade reality TV show.”

Journey to the Microcosmos- Some Water Bears Live on Land

Images Originally Captured by Jam’s Germs

CC: “You might climb up a tree to get a bird's eye view of the world, or to pick some fruit. But for our master of microscopes, James, trees are a way to get a very close up view of something much smaller than an apple. Yeah, it's time to talk about tardigrades.”

Journey to the Microcosmos- Some Water Bears Live on Land

“Another thing I don't think we talk enough about when talking about tardigrades, is that there are likely upwards of 1000 species of tardigrade! For comparison, there are 6500 mammals... total. ALL MAMMALS. 6500. Tardigrades, over 1000 all by themselves. So, you gotta wonder, in the face of all of these tardigrade species, how do scientists even pick which ones to study? Well, much like how we've got our reasons for the tardigrades we focus on here, they have theirs.“

Journey to the Microcosmos- Some Water Bears Live on Land

Images Originally Captured by Jam’s Germs

“While we've talked about tardigrades quite a bit on this channel, one of their weird quirks that we haven't gotten into are their coelomocytes. See, tardigrades are multicellular organisms, but they don't have a circulatory or respiratory system. So, how do they deliver all of the things they need to deliver to all of their cells? Well, they have coelomocytes. These are little storage cells that hold sugars and protein and lipids, and they transport them around the tardigrade's body. It's like little presents delivered from cell to cell in a bubble that floats around the organism. It's kind of adorable.“

Journey to the Microcosmos- Some Water Bears Live on Land

“Along with all the squirrels and birds and bugs scurrying up and down and around trees, there are also tiny little tree tardigrades tucked into the watery drops inside moss and lichen that grow on the tree's surface. They're not actually called tree tardigrades, they're called terrestrial tardigrades, because they live on land they're a little bit different from the tardigrades we've shown here thus far.”

Journey to the Microcosmos- Some Water Bears Live on Land

Images Originally Captured by Jam’s Germs