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TARDIGRADES

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14 views15 pages

TARDIGRADES

Uploaded by

anurag1052007
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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KENDRIYA VIDYALAYA NO.

-2

THE
MOST
RESILIENT
CREATURE
Session 2024-2025

Class 12th

BIOLOGY
Under the Supervision of Principal’s Signature Submitted By
CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that


the project work on TARDIGRADES based on the
curriculum of CBSE has been completed by
___________ of
class XII . The above-mentioned project work has
been completed under my guidance during the
academic year 2024-25.

Signature of
Teacher:

Signature of
Principal:
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I wish to express my deep gratitude and sincere thanks to the principal _____________, Kendriya
Vidyalaya No.2 jamnagar for his encouragement and for all the facilities that he provided for
this project work. I sincerely appreciate this magnanimity by taking me into his fold for which I shall
remain indebted to his.
I extend my hearty thanks to ___________Biology Teacher, who guided me to the successful
completion of this project. I take this opportunity to express my deep sense of gratitude for her
invaluable guidance, constant encouragement, immense motivation, which has sustained my
efforts at all the stages of this Project work.
I can’t forget to offer my sincere thanks to my parents and also to my classmates who helped me to
carry out this project work successfully and for their valuable advice and support, which I received
from them time to time.
INTRODUCTION TO TARDIGRADES

Tardigrades have five body sections, a well-defined head and four body segments,
each of which has a pair of legs fitted with claws. The claws vary in different
species from familiarly bearlike to strangely medieval fistfuls of hooked weaponry.
The hindmost legs are attached backwards, in a configuration unlike that of any
other animal. These legs are used for grasping and slow-motion acrobatics rather
than for walking.
Tardigrades are nearly translucent and they average about half a millimeter (500
micrometers) in length, about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. In the
right light you can actually see them with the naked eye. But researchers who work with
tardigrades see them as they appear through a dissecting microscope of 20- to 30-
power magnification—as charismatic miniature animals.
Most tiny invertebrates dart about frantically. Tardigrades move slowly as they clamber
around on bits of debris. They were first named tardigrada in Italian from the Latin
meaning “slow walker.” Tardigrades walk on short, stubby legs located under their
bodies, not sticking out to the sides. These stout legs propel them unhurriedly and
deliberately about their habitat.
Tardigrades’ best-known feature is their brute, dogged ability to survive
spectacularly extreme conditions. A few years ago, the Discovery network
show Animal Planet aired a countdown story about the most rugged
creatures on Earth. Tardigrades were crowned the “Most Extreme”
survivor, topping penguins in the Antarctic cold, camels in the dry oven of
the desert, tube worms in the abyss and even the legendarily persistent
cockroach.
RESILLIENCE OF TARDIGRADES
Tardigrades are capable of suspending their metabolism. Cryptobiosis is a state
of extreme inactivity in response to adverse environmental conditions. In the
cryptobiotic state, all metabolic procedures stop, preventing reproduction,
development, and repair.
In the Cryptobiotic state the creature loses up to 97 percent of its body moisture
and shrivels into a structure about one-third its original size, called a tun. In this
state, a form of cryptobiosis called anhydrobiosis—meaning life without water—
the animal can survive just about anything.
Tardigrades have been experimentally subjected to temperatures of 0.05 kelvins (–
272.95 degrees Celsius or functional absolute zero) for 20 hours, then warmed,
rehydrated and returned to active life. They have been stored at –200 degrees Celsius
for 20 months and have survived.

They have been exposed to 150 Celsius, far above the boiling point of water, and have
been revived. They have been subjected to more than 40,000 kilopascals of pressure
and excess concentrations of suffocating gasses (carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide,
nitrogen, sulfur dioxide), and still they returned to active life. In the cryptobiotic state,
the animals even survived the burning ultraviolet radiation of space.
TARDIGRADES AND ASTROBIOLOGY
In 2007, tardigrades became the first multicellular animal to survive exposure to
the lethal environs of outer space. Researchers in Europe launched an experiment
on the European Space Agency’s BIOPAN 6/Foton-M3 mission that exposed
cryptobiotic tardigrades directly to solar radiation, heat and the vacuum of space.
While the experimental vessel orbited 260 kilometers above the Earth, the
researchers triggered the opening of a container with tardigrade tuns inside and
exposed them to the Sun. When the tuns were returned to Earth and rehydrated,
the animals moved, ate, grew, shed and reproduced.
They had survived. In summer of 2011, Project Biokis, sponsored by the Italian
Space Agency, ferried tardigrades into space on the U.S. space shuttle Endeavor.
Colonies of tardigrades were exposed to different levels of ionizing radiation. The
damage is now being assayed to learn more about how cells react to radiation and,
perhaps, how tardigrade cells fend off its damage.
THANK YOU

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