hey, you wanna learn about cool animal? an unkillable cool animal? a cool animal you’re probably touching right now?
I think you dooooo.
meet the Tardigrade.
AND THE LAST ENEMY THAT SHALL BE DESTROYED IS DEATH
Tardigrades, also called Water Bears (because of the way they walk with their six stubby legs, exactly like a regular Mammal Bear) are one of nature’s greatest survivors.
they might not look all that impressive, being only half a millimeter long, but the humble Tardigrade has survived all five extinction events on the planet earth. yeah, even the nightmare volcano thing and the dying-star radiation bath thing. this planet is kind of awful.
also their face kind of looks like a butt. hee hee!
they are found worldwide in almost every environment from meadows to the bottom of the ocean to the ice of Antarctica to the roof of your house. you’re probably touching one right now (spooky finger wiggle).
they usually live on patches of moss or lichen, where they dine on plant matter and also basically anything smaller than they are (including other Tardigrades because THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE).
OOONLYYY OOOOONNNE
Tardigrades can survive some serious bullshit that would freeze/boil/completely fucking pancake you and I.
they can go into a kind of hibernation state where they basically temporarily mummify themselves. in this freeze-dried condition, they can withstand temperatures from −458 °F to 300 °F, pressures of
0 – 1,200 atmospheres, and 1000 times more radiation than it would take to kill a human for short periods.
they have even been exposed to actual fucking space, and been revived none the worse for wear. for ten days. they were unprotected in space in the face of solar radiation and hard vacuum for 10 days and they were fine. jesus.
TO SURVIVE, I SHALL BECOME A HIDEOUS PILE
if Mother Nature ever created an unkillable creature, this is it. they fear no creature or man, and nothing can kill them.
…oh, except Google, who has personally killed hundreds of Tardigrades.
what?
of course I’m serious.
DEAD SERIOUS
back in 2015, Google played with the idea of creating a modular smartphone with swappable components. for some goddam reason, one of those proposed modules was a small, self-contained aquarium full of Tardigrades that you could look at and interact with using your phone.
it’s an… interesting (read: FUCKING STUPID) idea, but Google ran into a problem: they kept accidentally killing the Tardigrades. turns out the inside of a phone is pretty fucking hot, and Tardigrades are actually not great with being constantly boiled, even with their protective mummystate.
before Google could figure out how to stop killing dozens of the most unkillable creature on the planet, the project was cancelled.
SMARTPHONES, MY ONE WEAKNESS
Tardigrades have gone back to being weird little immortal gummy bears, just living their tiny lives without fear that someday a massive tech conglomerate might descend upon them and rend asunder all they hold dear.
But we must ask ourselves: if Google has perfected the art of killing the unkillable, what hope do we have?
Marshmellowmilktea 