Tardigrads (Water-bears or Moss piglets)

Jun 06, 2018 • 4:39 AM UTC

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Water-bears or moss piglets are found everywhere in almost all kind of habitats on earth. Researchers claimed that they are first organism which live in space. I tried a lot to find out them here but to find out them require lot of efforts. These moss piglets scientifically called tardigrades can be found on lichens, moss, dust and mud etc.
I along with UBA team member Mr. Manish Kumar went to collect lichens. We searched a lot around our campus but we haven’t seen any lichen. Than we moved ahead and found trees near village Bhauri. We saw lichens on two different plant species namely called Acacia acacia and Mangifera indica. We collected lichens from there.

Lichen from Mangifera indica Lichen from Acacia acacia
Now, I took the sample of mango tree and put in plastic cup. I put spring water in it. I kept the sample for one day alone. Next day I took the sample. See below how does lichen looks after soaking water. So see below:

Now I have to use pipette for taking sample’s liquid because now tardigrades, nematodes and rotifers etc., come out in liquid from lichen.

But now I have to see the tardigrade under some instrument. For this purpose I used Foldscope which is shown here.

I need to take one/two drop of that sample and put on the slide. Here is slide which I used in Foldscope.

Now I took one drop from the sample using pipette and put it on slide. You can see here;

Now I marked this sample. I wrote the name of the slide. Otherwise it would confuse me in future while I will search it in my library.

I have to see the tardigrade, how does tardigrade look. I took this slide and put in the Foldscope.

So, lets observe the slide in foldscope and try to find out tardy (I called tardigrades by this nickname, so don’t confuse with this name).
I tried to see by eyes under light.

I have seen some structures but I was not sure whether it’s tardigrade. Now I adjusted the slide and again observed.

Oh, great! It’s tardigrade. Wonderful ! So, I took RedMiNote4 to click the photo. The tardigrade is in dormant stage.

This is tardigrade, finally after big efforts I found it. I will try to collect more and more tardigrade in the region of Madhya Pradesh, India. This whole work is done at (CEG Lab, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal) along with Mr. Manish Kumar who helped me to collect sample and clicking photos.
I hope that I will get tardy in moving stage or in better stage in my future posts. Also I am trying to culture tardigrades.

Tardigrads (Water-bears or Moss piglets)

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