Where To Find Water Bears

They can survive a wide range of temperatures.

Where to find water bears. These eight legged invertebrates are only 0 1 1mm long yet they are certainly the world s toughest animals. Soft lichen is more likely to have tardigrades than hard crusty lichen. You can even find water bears in the powdery lichen that grows on rocks and brick walls. Water bears can survive in hot springs in the deep ocean under solid layers of ice and even after exposure to deadly irradiation.

They are also known as tardigrades which means slow walker and the name water bear comes from the bear like way they walk. In damp moss on flowering plants in sand in fresh water and in the sea. Tardigrades are the toughest animal on the earth. Water bear a scanning electron micrograph of a tardigrade or water bear.

They can most easily be found living in a film of water on lichens and mosses as well as in sand dunes soil sediments and leaf litter. Water bears can live just about anywhere. All tardigrades are considered aquatic because they need water around their bodies to permit gas exchange as well as to prevent uncontrolled desiccation. Water bears are microscopic animals found in water all over the world a lot more on that later.

Tardigrades also called water bears or moss piglets refer to over 1 150 species of microscopic aquatic animals that can be found in moss ferns lichens soil beaches dunes and other damp habitats all over the planet and you can find one in this excellent science experiment outdoor expedition. How can they do that. Aside from hibernation a lot more on that later the similarity pretty much ends there. They live in a variety of habitats worldwide.

You may hear that the water bears official name. They prefer to live in sediment at the bottom of a lake on moist pieces of moss or other wet environments. Just how tough are they. In adapting to this wide range of external conditions a large number of genera and species have evolved.