Talk:Tardigrade

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[edit] Rearranging

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] -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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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. MythSearchertalk 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)