Tardigrade Tuesday

My dearheart is exploring bryophytes. These are mosses, liverworts, and, most obscurely, hornworts (there are approximately 220 species of hornworts in the world). These tiny plants typically require a healthy dose of magnification to identify. And when you’re looking at a little clump of bryophyte through a microscope, you may see such local community members as rotifers and tardigrades. Here’s one of the latter, a tardigrade magnified 100X. (This is my photo of her slide.).

Also known as water bears (Kleiner Wasserbär in 18th century German) or moss piglets, these eight-legged micro-critters have their own phylum within the kingdom of Animalia. There are over 1300 known species. iNat has taken this particular observation down to genus Viridiscus, one of the rough-bodied tardigrades, class Heterotardigrada.