Have you ever wondered what is the toughest animal on the planet? Well, the answer is not a lion or an elephant not even a dinosaur, it is this little creature called a Tardigrade aka (Water Bear).
These small animals are nearly invincible, able to tolerate conditions and temperatures that would kill nearly any other living creature.
Here are some of the unbelievable facts about them:
- Tardigrades have existed for a very long time. The fossil records show they have been around for 530 million years, even before the dinosaurs
- They can be boiled, crushed, frozen, live in space and live without water and food for a decade.
- They can live anywhere from ocean beds at depth of 14,000 ft to high up in Himalayas at a height of 20,000 ft.
- A European team of researchers sent a group of living tardigrades to orbit the earth on the outside of a FOTON-M3 rocket for ten days, despite being exposed to vacuum space condition and rays, they managed to survive.
- Scientists have frozen them to temperature of -200 degrees Celsius and they still managed to survive for days!
- The lethal dose of Gamma Rays to kill Tardigrades is 5,000 Gy while the lethal dose of heavy ions is 6,200 Gy. For humans, 5-10 Gy is lethal.
- Still not amazed? Okay then, did you know they could survive a nuclear explosion?!
