Starship Asterisk*

Case wrote:

neufer wrote:

JohnD wrote:
Some tardigrades have more fearsome looking mouths. See image in the middle of this page: [Pinterest]. 'Proper' jaws 'n' teeth!

Hydrothermal Worms are tardigrade undersea Morlock cousins.

Science writer John Rennie tried to further identify the hydrothermal worm image, but found that another science writer, Carl Zimmer, already beat him on the same quest: it’s Lepidonotopodium piscesae.

Both species belong to Protostomia, and both are about the same size, but that’s where the similarity ends. Lepidonotopodium piscesae is an Annelid a.k.a. sort of ringed worm. Originally, Panarthropoda, including Tardigrades, were considered to be closely related to the annelids, grouped together as the Articulata, but newer studies place them among the Ecdysozoa (like centipedes).
So, distant cousins, and that jaw image doesn’t belong on a tardigrade page.

• Thanks for clarifying, Case
  
  So it's safer to go after cut(icl)e rather than (spiral) cleavage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecdysozoa wrote:
<<The most notable characteristic shared by ecdysozoans is a three-layered cuticle (four in Tardigrada) composed of organic material, which is periodically molted as the animal grows. This process of molting is called ecdysis, and gives the group its name. The ecdysozoans lack locomotory cilia and produce mostly amoeboid sperm, and their embryos do not undergo spiral cleavage as in most other protostomes.>>

neufer wrote:

JohnD wrote:Some tardigrades have more fearsome looking mouths. See image in the middle of this page: [Pinterest]. 'Proper' jaws 'n' teeth!

Hydrothermal Worms are tardigrade undersea Morlock cousins.

Cousin Ricky wrote:

JohnD wrote:Some tardigrades have more fearsome looking mouths.
See image in the middle of this page: https://uk.pinterest.com/continents/tar ... s/?lp=true
'Proper' jaws 'n' teeth!

Didn't get very far before the Web site grayed everything out and demanded that I sign in. Sorry, Pinterest, you're just not that important to me.

sillyworm wrote:If only we humans could be so efficient.

JohnD wrote:Some tardigrades have more fearsome looking mouths.
See image in the middle of this page: https://uk.pinterest.com/continents/tar ... s/?lp=true
'Proper' jaws 'n' teeth!

JohnD wrote:
Some tardigrades have more fearsome looking mouths.

See image in the middle of this page: https://uk.pinterest.com/continents/tar ... s/?lp=true
'Proper' jaws 'n' teeth!

• Hydrothermal Worms are tardigrade undersea Morlock cousins.

https://www.fei.com/image-gallery/the-hydrothermal-worm/ wrote:

[color=#0000FF][b][size=150]Hydrothermal tardigrade cousin[/size][/b][/color]

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This Terrifying Monster Is a Real Animal
Jesus Diaz 7/18/11 8:49am

<<This [~0.5 mm long] beast is a hydrothermal worm found in a hydrothermal vent, an Earth fissure that puts water and hot gasses in contact, generating rich life environments. Worms like this don't have a digestive tract, but bacteria that transforms hemoglobin into carbon compounds. The worm can absorb the carbon compounds directly.>>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF][size=150]A new South American[/size][/color] [url=https://www.researchgate.net/figure/258903535_fig3_Figure-3-Macrobiotus-kristenseni-sp-nov-A-Most-anterior-end-of-the-animal-bearing][size=150]urban tardigrade[/size][/url][/b]

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<<Usually, tardigrades are about 0.5 mm long when they are fully grown. Tardigrades are prevalent in mosses and lichens and feed on plant cells, algae, and small invertebrates. Most tardigrades are phytophagous (plant eaters) or bacteriophagous (bacteria eaters), but some are carnivorous to the extent of eating other smaller species of tardigrades (e.g., Milnesium tardigradum). Others are cannibalistic to their own species. Their tubular mouth is armed with stylets, which are used to pierce the plant cells, algae, or small invertebrates on which the tardigrades feed, releasing the body fluids or cell contents. The mouth opens into a triradiate, muscular, sucking pharynx. The stylets are lost when the animal molts, and a new pair is secreted from a pair of glands that lie on either side of the mouth. The pharynx connects to a short esophagus, and then to an intestine that occupies much of the length of the body, which is the main site of digestion. The intestine opens, via a short rectum, to an anus located at the terminal end of the body. Some species only defecate when they molt, leaving the feces behind with the shed cuticle.>>

heehaw wrote:Perhaps we should seed the atmosphere of Venus with these critters.

heehaw wrote:Perhaps we should seed the atmosphere of Venus with these critters.

lefthip wrote:Seriously now, does anything eat them?

APOD Robot wrote:Tardigrades are more common than humans across most of the Earth.

FLPhotoCatcher wrote:Tardigrades can endure a lot of extreme conditions, but can they survive a photo-shoot of the close-up variety? I guess it would be ironic if getting their electron micrograph for their visa to visit the Martian moon Phobos killed them instead of the trip itself.

Wadsworth wrote:

Ann wrote: What reasons do we have to even consider that its origins may be extraterrestrial, in contrast to all other animals on the Earth?
Ann

To me, because tardigrades are such extremophiles, the possibility of them surviving an accidental trip to earth becomes more of a possibility than say, an earthworm, making the trip.

Perhaps they were one of the original life forms displaced here on earth. Hitching a ride on a big rock left over from a previous nova that our sun formed from.

Ann wrote: What reasons do we have to even consider that its origins may be extraterrestrial, in contrast to all other animals on the Earth?
Ann

Boomer12k wrote:No wonder it can survive... it looks like it is wearing a SPACE SUIT...

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APOD Robot wrote:
Is this an alien? Probably not, but of all the animals on Earth, the tardigrade might be the best candidate.