No, I'm not finished with you yet

In case you think I am finished with the dank, scary topic of tardigrades, think again. I am finding millions of images of them on the internet, millions of videos, songs about them, dances about them, artwork, jewellery, tshirts, and even. . . cartoons.

Yes. I was astonished and a little taken aback to find a whole episode of the British cartoon series Aquanauts to be devoted to Water Bears. (Not Water Bearers - that's Aquarius, another issue.) This animated tardigrade looks less like the electron-microscope-enhanced nightmares I have posted above, and more like the Pillsbury Doughboy.

Calling them water bears (or, even more euphemistically, moss piglets) plays down the horror of these creatures who cannot be killed by ice, flame, 100 years of dessication, or being shot out into space. If they're going to send them out into the cold reaches of the universe, why not send ALL of them?

Here, Tardy Grade lounges with his friends Retro Grade, Make The Grade, Centi Grade and Shady Grade. All look like nothing more than obese caterpillars.

This is what tardigrades look like. This. THIS. Stop looking away. Stop evading reality and face the truth! These are not "moss piglets" or "water bears". They are micro-horrors waiting to take over the world. Yes, once we've poisoned the environment and driven all the other animals and life forms extinct, these "things" will still be swarming around, because they can live anywhere, under any circumstances, at any temperature, and even without water or (probably) air. They don't even need genes, for God's sake, When they're a little short of DNA, they just "import" some from other species.

(I just got a horrible idea for a short story. Tardi-humans? No. No, I mustn't!)

So no matter how innocent and Disneylike these things may look here, don't be fooled. They are horrible. They have too many legs. (Anything with more than four legs is automatically off my wubby list.) They even make bad cartoon characters, lumbering and lumpish. In fact, they remind me a little bit of those termite queens seething with eggs, so fat they can't move, like something from My 600 Pound Life.

(Blogger's note. I here deleted a gif of a seething, undulating termite queen, immobilized by her own egg-laden weight. I couldn't even stand to look at it myself.)

I think some tidy unmarried British scientist from the 1800s must've named these monstrosities Moss Piglets. It's a slightly perverted name, the kind of name bestowed by someone who never got any, I mean never, and thus thought these things charming - if not captivating, if not provocative - as he peered at them through his incredibly crude microscope (the kind you could make with two mirrors and a toilet roll) all day long.

THIS is a moss piglet. A piglet made of moss.

This is a piglet. Is there any resemblance?

You decide.

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Tardigrade sex: cover your eyes

Although some species are parthenogenic, both males and females are usually present, each with a single gonad located above the intestine. Two ducts run from the testis in males, opening through a single pore in front of the anus. In contrast, females have a single duct opening either just above the anus or directly into the rectum, which thus forms a cloaca.[24]

Tardigrades are oviparous, and fertilization is usually external. Mating occurs during the molt with the eggs being laid inside the shed cuticle of the female and then covered with sperm. A few species have internal fertilization, with mating occurring before the female fully sheds her cuticle. In most cases, the eggs are left inside the shed cuticle to develop, but some species attach them to nearby substrate.[24]

The eggs hatch after no more than 14 days, with the young already possessing their full complement of adult cells. Growth to the adult size therefore occurs by enlargement of the individual cells (hypertrophy), rather than by cell division. Tardigrades may molt up to 12 times.[24]

Tardigrades: the horror

I had no idea, when I began to probe the subject of tardigrades, how quickly I'd be in over my head. Soon I felt I was trapped in some sort of ceaseless pageant of unnameable, formless horror.

As it turns out, tardigrades don't just live in stagnant mudpuddles, National Geographic specials on microbiology or Wikipedia entries that go on forever. They have invaded the culture. Here I hadn't even heard of them, and now they are seemingly everywhere, especially in DeviantArt. The artist didn't have to exaggerate very much to create this frightening gangsta 'grade.


 

And this. What is this? The General Patton of tardigrades?

It gets a bit ridiculous, but yes, there are Tardy (or Grade, whichever you prefer) stuffies. This one is named Tardy O'Grady.

This looks like a twisted loaf of garlic bread to me, but it's a 3D printed copy of a tardigrade. Believe me, there were much worse things floating around the internet, including tardigrade jewelry (wtf???) and crochet patterns to Make your own Grade.

And you can keep them as pets, too! Approximately 350 tardigrades to one drop of water.