a casual discussion about animals that I think

are weird, gross, and beautiful, or all three.

And today we're talking about tardigrades!

Or water bears.

Or moss piglets.

Aw.

These little babies are microscopic,

and so you've probably never seen one before.

But they can be found anywhere from the equator,

to polar regions, to the highest point on Earth,

or to the deepest parts of the sea, or your backyard.

They're probably there, probably just

nibbling on some moss cause that's what they like to do.

They're like less than a milliliter long.

That's cute.

And, oh, so tiny.

They are mostly herbivores.

Some of them very tiny, and most of them

are parasites, but mostly herbivores.

They just suck on moss.

That's all they do.

That's their job is to just go nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, moss,

moss, moss.

They are the toughest animal on Earth.

So if there was a nuclear blast they'd probably

be the only things to survive, not cockroaches like everyone

seems to think.

Ew.

Cockroaches, no.

They wouldn't.

But tardigrades would, and Twinkies.

And that is because they have evolved this ability for when

their environment becomes too hostile for them

to keep sucking on moss and doing whatever they want to do,

they die basically, just for a little bit.

It's basically like this long hibernation

where they just slow down everything in their bodies.

When conditions become livable for them again

they'll just come back to life like no big deal.

Whatever.

Yeah.

I died.

Came back to life.

That's how I [BLEEP] roll.

In 2007 we sent them into space and we exposed them

to solar winds, and subzero temperatures,

and an oxygen deprived space vacuum.

And then we brought them back to Earth,

and they were just like, oh yeah, is that all you got?

Bring it on.

They have been known to withstand temperatures

as low as negative 200 Celsius and as high as 151 Celsius.

That's insane.

They've also been known to survive pressures

as low as the vacuum of outer space and pressures as high

as six times the amount of pressure

that you would find at the deepest part of our deepest

ocean on Earth.

What?

Why?

There's nothing on this Earth that

could kill these things, like nothing.

But as amazing as these little creatures are,

their contributions to the ecosystem

is very poorly understand.

You go to a scientist, and you're

like, tardigrades, what do those do?

And they're like I don't [BLEEP] know.

There is over 1,000 different types of these little water

bears, but some of them are wholly lacking in males.

And that's because some of them reproduce with parthenogenesis.

And that's where you don't need no man.

I'm a strong, independent woman, and I

don't need a man to create new life.

They are amazing creatures.

And I love them.

Also, they're fat and cute.

Thank you for watching "Weird, Gross, and Beautiful."

My name is Catie Wayne, and if you'd like to you

can follow me on Twitter.

And then you can tell me what animal

you would like me to cover next.

Today's episode was suggested by Adderall Apocalypse.

So thank you so much.

This was great, and I loved learning about these things.

So muah, thank you.

And if you would like to you could check out

these videos over here.

And you can subscribe and like the video,

because that would really help me out a lot.

I love you so much, and I'll see you next time.

Bye.

Muah.

[ANIMAL NOISES]