Talk:Tardigrade

"Ionic" radiation?

At best this term is vague; at worst it is meaningless. Also, much solar radiation - like visible light and infra-red - is all but harmless. So, I changed "along with solar radiation, gamma radiation, ionic radiation" to "ionizing radiation —". Gamma radiation is a form of ionizing radiation.Leveretth (talk) 03:56, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Where do they live

How far have they spread across the world, which countries are they in? (129.12.155.173 (talk) 00:38, 14 December 2012 (UTC))

Rearranging

SHUT UP!!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.21.82.228 (talk) 03:23, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I have added some sections and rearranged the paragraphs to make it a bit more logical (hopefully ;) GregRobson 23:48, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am not happy at the reversion of my "good faith" edits. Yes, outer space is a combination of the other conditions, but that is exactly why is cannot be subsumed under any one of them, such as radiation. There is also too much detailed information about space experiments in the head of the entry which ought to be in a specific section of the article itself: details about individual space flights are not appropriate in the summary of a zoological article. Myopic Bookworm (talk) 14:48, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Tardigrade sketch or image

A sketch or an image of how the tardigrades actually look like would improve this article a lot. Preferably a sketch, as it is often hard to make out the details on images on such tiny creatures. Jens Nielsen 22:55, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

You can google search an image of the Tardigrade and obtain a microscopic image of the creature, however i am not familiar with the proper process for uploading images and what not, so if any are aware of it please help

f1r3r41n 18:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

There is a cool one here http://tardigrade.acnatsci.org/tardigrades/pic311.png Suppafly 21:04, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Copyrighted. Pavel Vozenilek 01:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I have several images i'm willing to upload, they're from my BSc dissertaion, some are hand-drawn specifically detailing the general anatomy and CNS of the tardigraede. I will investigate the uploading process. 87.114.11.142 18:15, September 5, 2006 (UTC)

-272.8 degrees?

I have been unable to find anything on the 'net saying that tardigrades can survive -272.8 degrees Celsius. I have been able to find the following site: http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/tardigrade/index.html, which says that they can survive -200 degrees Celsius, which sounds much more reasonable considering that "the Boomerang Nebula, with a temperature of -272.15 Celsius ; 1K, is the coldest place known outside a laboratory." (Absolute zero) Could someone change this? I've found a site: http://www.earthlife.net/inverts/tardigrada.html --Quadraxis 18:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

the water bear as a polar bear

I took a second year university circumpolar history class where the water bear was mentioned, definately not as a tiny creature. I remember the range to be as far south as Cape Cod. The waterbear was hunted to extinction since it competed for the blubber on seals and walruses. Also,the water bear was fearsome to whalers and settlers. The water bear was most probably the polar bear. Can anyone confirm this to be true? H. Lorne 01:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Doubtful. Doo-dle-doo 21:39, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Ya they were probably thinking of polar bear because the scientific name of polar bears is Ursus Maritimus, which means "sea bear" or "water bear" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.104.226.85 (talk) 04:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

No evidence for 100-year survival of tardigrades!

It is amazing how difficult it seems to be to give up old views. I find the story about 120-year survival of dry tardigrades repeated again and again, despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that a tardigrade can revive successfully for such a long time. The paper that I wrote together with R. Bertolani in 2001 (cited in this page) had the specific aim of killing this myth, but nobody seems to be willing to accept the fact that a tiny movement of a leg is not equivalent to successful recovery of the animal. I would appreciate if the text after "Dehydration" could be replaced by the correct information that tardigrades have been shown to survive nearly one decade in a dry state, with reference to Guidetti, R. & Jönsson, K.I. 2002. Long-term anhydrobiotic survival in semi-terrestrial micrometazoans. J. Zool. 257: 181-187.

There is also a reference to "recent experiments" on chemobiosis by Cai and Zabder, without any reference to a publication. I think this is not acceptable, so should be deleted. In addition, someone has refered to our paper (Jönsson & Bertolani 2001) in this context, which is completely incorrect.

I hope somebody can change the text to make it more in line with current knowledge.

K. Ingemar Jönsson 04:22, May 25, 2007 (UTC)

I saw a show that says the longest living water bears, without water, was 127 years. 192.28.2.6 13:24, September 13, 2007 (UTC)

I saw a show where they autopsied an alien in real life. Lots of shows publish common misconceptions. Peer reviewed journals are what is needed here. --69.178.7.34 (talk) 14:34, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

From Manga Science Volume VI by Yoshitoh Asari, ISBN-05-202039-1 published in 6 March, 1998, a tardigrade survived over 120 years from a dried state and lived for 2~3 minutes before it actually died. The info was supplied to the book by a professor from 東京女子医科大学 named 宇津水和夫. If a specific paper could quote this to be wrong, by the five pillars of wikipedia, namely the WP:NPOV, this info should still be in the article, but immediate followed by sources with evidence stating it is in fact not considered survival. The sentence should be something like: "Although the tardigrade was said to have survived over 120 years after being in a dried state and lived for 2~3 minutes after being given water, and died afterwards,[ref 1] some further research doubt its accuracy since it is only a small movement in the leg.[ref 2]" Wikipedia should present all views, not a specific one. Especially when it is controversal. MythSearcher^talk 15:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

If this is a common misconception, then it should be mentioned as such, not deleted. — Omegatron 00:34, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed! But the article is still listed as "twelve decades" under dehydration, no mention of the "controversy". Tweil (talk) 13:27, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Questions

Normal life span? What do they feed on? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.163.165.101 (talk) 21:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Answer: tardigrades are suctorial feeders. They mainly eat plants and small animals though some are gut parasites of molluscs and echinoderms. Hope this helps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geologyrocks101 (talk • contribs) 13:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Space. The Final Tardigrade Frontier

These little water bears can survive direct exposure to space environment with no protection.

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1054351/Tiny-water-bears-creatures-survive-space.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Root Beers (talk • contribs) 13:13, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

ONLY while they're in suspended animation as desiccated resting-stage cysts, and the same is true for a large number of other animals adapted to temporary waters, from rotifers to some crustaceans. The most well-known organism producing "can survive in space" type resting-stage cysts is probably the small crustacean Artemia ("sea monkeys"). None of these organisms survive space or desiccation or high temperatures or lack of oxygen while actively moving and feeding. 213.112.195.70 (talk) 12:22, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Extremophile

From a very technical perspective, the Tardigrade enters cryptobiosis in hostile environments, which is very different from thriving in them. Does this not exempt them from extremophile status? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.181.155.184 (talk) 15:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

(2.5 years later) Yes, I agree, so I have removed the dubious unsourced claim. -84user (talk) 08:53, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Tardigrades are not segmented

In the introductory section to the article it states that tardigrades are segmented animals, which is wrong, to the best of my knowledge. They are monomeric with four pairs of unjointed chelate legs.

Tardigrades in popular culture?

Mal Webb (Mal Webb, http://malwebb.com), an Australian performer, has a song on his "Trainer Wheels" CD about waterbears, listing (most of) the various extreme environments they can survive. Is this worth noting on the page? --PaulWay (talk) 23:57, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

food of water bear

What do they eat? How long can they live? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.15.108.167 (talk) 17:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

they eat food and they live for ages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.71.185.189 (talk) 12:21, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Chemobiosis

I'm currently wondering about the section on the resistance against environmental toxins. It states that tardigrades can undergo "chemobiosis", which is told to be a form of cryptobiosis. The thing is, you can't find anything at all about chemobiosis in the web except quotations of this article and the article about Cryptobiosis. So I've asked the guy who added the section about chemobiosis in this article and he told me, he got the information from here. So, does chemobiosis really exist???

Besides, the evidence about chemobiosis does, like already told above by K. Ingemar Jönsson, not belong at all. I assume this to be a mistake, because the two references were already there before the line about chemobiosis was added (in January 2006 by user Kimmylee).
--Johannes Rieke 16:21, 14. April 2010 (UTC)

Genome

The section states "is being sequenced" without mentioning a date. It is quite common in Wikipedialand for the present tense to be used without any indication of when. I wonder what the policy is with this. Obviously it cannot remain true indefinitely, but does the usage imply that the writer will monitor progress and update the article when the sequencing has been completed? Dawright12 (talk) 10:10, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

This practice is generally discouraged as is the use of words such as "recently". If it is to be included it should be qualified with "as of XXXX" or something to that effect. mgiganteus1 (talk) 11:36, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

As Mgiganteus1 says, writing in that way is discouraged for precisely that reason. Relying on somebody to update it when required is not a reliable approach. It is better to make a statement that will remain true, e.g. "A sequencing project was started in 200x". In this case, the reference link provided says that the work is still ongoing but I am not sure how we can tell that this is kept up-to-date. --DanielRigal (talk) 11:44, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Mosquito survived in space

I removed the bit about tardigrades being the only animals that survived in open space based on these news: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Mosquito_Survives_In_Outer_Space_999.html

Modern tardigrades?

Why is the image labeled 'Modern tardigrades'? Kingturtle = (talk) 15:31, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps as opposed to fossil tardigrades? I'll change the caption to the species name. --Danger (talk) 16:08, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Much nicer, and more clear. Thanks, Kingturtle = (talk) 20:02, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Microscopic?

In the first paragraph it says that tardigrades are microscopic animals, but it then says that the size ranges from 0.1 to 1.5 millimeters. Should that be macroscopic? 1.5 MM is definitely visible to the naked eye, but .1 might not be. Silenceisgod (talk) 15:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

• totally agree, changed microscopic to 'small' Aperseghin (talk) 15:24, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

WTF?

What the... What has been done to this formerly well done page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.98.128.11 (talk) 03:02, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit

I changed, "Freshly hatched larvae may be smaller than 0.05 mm." to "Freshly hatched tardigrades may be smaller than 0.05 mm. Tardigrades do not have a larval form. The young ones resemble adults. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.94.59.192 (talk) 01:17, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Introduction:

“Since 1778, over 500 new tardigrade species have been found.” yet Description: “About 1,150 species of tardigrades have been described.” Is this a contradiction or were 650 species of tardigrade species discovered during the five years preceeding 1778 – surely not? Dawright12 (talk) 15:59, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

It's likely a case of using different sources to cobble together this wiki page. The two are not mutually exclusive. 1,150 is indeed "over 500". --2001:980:A4CB:1:B136:BFC6:29DD:A81C (talk) 01:10, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Millimetre instead of mm

In "Tardigrades are 1 millimetre (0.039 in)" why "millimetre" instead of "mm"? If inches are written as "in" millimetre should be written as "mm" as they are, in fact, most generally known an more widely used. Inches, are generally only used in USA. There are more people who know what "mm" is than people who know what "in" is. EnriqueCadalso (talk) 19:56, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I see now this it the default behavior of the *convert* template from Wikipedia, so the claim should be done to Wikipedia instead. My point stands though. EnriqueCadalso (talk) 04:26, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

paedophiles

I mean really did someone mess up this link or what!! Please fix this or remove as this is wrong — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.43.236 (talk) 12:55, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

request help with reference 27

Could someone please fix reference #27? The |authorlink= parameter isn't correct, but I'm not sure if it shold be changed to |title= or |chapter= or something else. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:31, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Life Span

For such a resilient creature with DNA repairing abilities, I wonder if they have a know life span? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.245.3.15 (talk) 22:24, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Lots of contradictory information...

I don't know much about editing on Wikipedia, so I am not certain how to flag this for review or anything, but there is highly contradictory information contained in each subheading. Size is the most glaring example...within 300 words, there are no less than three different numbers quoted for typical adult size. I don't want to go banging around without knowing what I am doing and messing the article up, nor do I know which data is correct, but it should be reconciled and consistent across the article. Perhaps using a range when describing average adult size in all cases in order to avoid conflicting info? Thanks!

Generalizations

[I don't quite understand how the last section, "Lots of contradictory information..." does not have any editor's info.]

Science writers should be very careful about how information is presented. The way the second paragraph is written it appears to indicate that all tardigrades can withstand all the extremes mentioned, which I doubt. If an expert is able to review this article, I suggest that the language be changed to reflect more precisely what is true. Something like "There are species that can survive temperatures up to ..." and "Species have been found living under conditions of ...".Lisapaloma (talk) 13:47, 13 October 2013 (UTC)