The Insane Biology of: The Tardigrade

Thank you so much to Marc Mapalo and Dr. Paul Bartels for their help throughout this video-making process and their insight on this topic.

Thanks to Robert Berdan, Matt Inman, and Invertebrate Biology Videos for publishing their tardigrade images
under the CC license, it is a huge contribution to
science communication.

Links to my things:

Images Courtesy of Getty Images

Thanks to our Patreon Supporters:
Eric Ypsilantis
Robert Thompson
Keith Skipper

Credits:
Writer/Narrator: Stephanie Sammann
Writer: Lorraine Boissoneault

References:
[4]

[PZ_ColdBeans]

"dehydrated nugget state" sounds like me waking up in the middle of the night trying to find my water bottle

[tournesol]

I do find it funny that Tardigrades are theoretically very good at surviving conditions that they’ll never once encounter across millions of generations. And simultaneously are part of the diet of snails. Incredible.

[rajatgupta]

In astrobiology we study that tardigrades play an important role in ecology. They act as pioneer species when a ecosystem is no longer able to survive on its own due to stress conditions such as heat, draught etc. When conditions become favorable again, tardigrades help revive the entire ecosystem.

[hughjass]

"You can see his little feetsies!"

#1 reason Tardigrades are cool

[littlefrogyboy]

Fun fact: If a Tardigrade walked in a straight line its whole life it could cover approximately 19 Km (11.8 mi). Scaling that up to human size that would be like us walking around earth's circumference 1.5 times. However, the average human will walk the equivalent distance of about 4 times earth's circumference in their life. Therefore humans on average walk 2 times farther in their life than tardigrades do when comparing their distance travelled to body length.

[NewMessage]

'Bubulubus' is the best word I've ever heard pronounced. Bar none.

[dottormaelstrom]

Damn, all those different tardigrade drawings and animations, they are so many that after a while I just started taking them for granted but I bet they took a long time. Love the dedication! The production quality is amazing!

[Kevan]

2:45 your dog knows exactly where they're at 😂

[Musicswagg]

Are we sure the tardigrade in amber is actually dead?🤔

[SingularisFox]

I certainly didn't expect an animal to ever be called a "Bubulubus", but I'm sure as hell glad there is one.
This is hilarious.

[FishareFriendsNotFood]

Good to know that long after I am gone, these little guys will still be running the Earth

[pranilpanda]

I’ve never heard of marine tardigrades before, so learning about them here is so cool!

[JimCorrigan]

The idea that tardigrades could've possibly seeded earth by hitching a ride on an asteroid is a very exciting prospect, even if it's unlikely.

[markmuller]

All these facts are so fascinating, a very unique mini-animal and this documentary is very well done and amazing!

[megabigblur]

It's crazy how small the marine tardigrades are. For perspective, human lymphocytes (white blood cells) are about 7 microns long. So an entire animal with a little brain and organs and feetsies and those weird antenna things is about the size of 14 lymphocytes lined up.

[rooster]

What awesome little creatures. Tardigrades remind me of tiny manatees. The narrator’s voice is such a pleasure to listen to.

[lcgmilllz]

“I don’t see shit” and “what was that?fuck” alone will have me subscribing forever.

Also I love science

[kappy]

“My dream is to cut the tail off, then see how fast they fall to the bottom.” -laughs like a maniac

[xm]

The tardigrades look like Pokémon. I wonder if they took any inspiration from tardigrades? It’s crazy how different the different types look from each other

[monkeywrench]

I thought tardigrades just swam in puddles, did’t know that at their scale they could actually walk.