Tardigrade Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Free fun long tardigrade trivia questions and answers

Tardigrade Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

What are Tardigrades?
A: Tardigrades are a phylum of water-dwelling, eight-legged, segmented micro-animals.

Tardigrades were first described by whom?
A: The German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773.

He gave them what name?
A: Little water bears.

The name Tardigrada (meaning "slow steppers") was given three years later by whom?
A: The Italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani.

Where have they been found?
A: Everywhere from mountaintops to the deep sea and mud volcanoes from tropical rainforests to the Antarctic.

Tardigrades are among the most resilient known animals with individual species able to survive extreme conditions that would be what?
A: Rapidly fatal to nearly all other known life forms.

They can withstand what?
A: Exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures (both high and low), air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation.

How many species of Tardigrades are there?
A: About 1,150 known species.

The group includes fossils dating from how long ago?
A: 530 million years ago, in the Cambrian period.

How long are they when fully grown?
A: About 0.5 mm (0.02 in) long.

They are short and plump, with how many pairs of legs?
A: Four.

Each leg ends in claws and/or what?
A: Sucking disks.

Where are tardigrades prevalent?
A: In mosses and lichens.

What do they feed on?
A: Plant cells, algae, and small invertebrates.

When collected, they may be viewed under a very low-power microscope, making them accessible to whom?
A: Students and amateur scientists.

Where is the most convenient place to find tardigrades?
A: On lichens and mosses.

Often, tardigrades can be found by doing what?
A: Soaking a piece of moss in water.

Newly hatched tardigrades may be how small?
A: Smaller than 0.05 mm long.

The body of a tardigrade consists of what?
A: A head, three body segments each with a pair of legs, and a caudal segment with a fourth pair of legs.

The legs don’t have what?
A: Joints.

The feet have how many claws?
A: Four to eight claws each.

The first three pairs of legs are directed in what direction?
A: Downward along the sides, and are the primary means of locomotion.

What about the fourth pair?
A: They are directed backward on the last segment of the trunk.

What are they primarily used for?
A: For grasping the substrate.

Tardigrades lack several Hox genes and a large what?
A: Intermediate region of the body axis.

In insects, this corresponds to what?
A: The entire thorax and the abdomen.

Practically the whole body, except for the last pair of legs, is made up of what?
A: Just the segments that are homologous to the head region in arthropods.

All adult tardigrades of the same species have the same quantity of what?
A: Cells.

Some species have how many cells in each adult?
A: 40,000.

Tardigrades do not have what kind of organs?
A: Respiratory organs.

How does gas exchange occur?
A: Across the entirety of the body.

The tubular mouth is armed with stylets, which are used for what?
A: To pierce the plant cells, algae, or small invertebrates on which the tardigrades feed.

This releases what?
A: The body fluids or cell contents.

The pharynx connects to a short esophagus, and then to what?
A: An intestine that occupies much of the length of the body.

The brain develops in what kind of pattern?
A: A bilaterally symmetric pattern.

The brain includes multiple lobes, mostly consisting of what?
A: Three bilaterally paired clusters of neurons.

Tardigrade eggs hatch after no more than how many days?
A: 14.

The young already possess their full complement of what?
A: Adult cells.

Growth to the adult size therefore occurs by enlargement of what?
A: The individual cells rather than by cell division.

How many times can a Tardigrade molt?
A: Up to 12 times.

Most tardigrades are plant eaters or bacteria eaters, but some are what?
A: Carnivorous to the extent of eating other smaller species of tardigrades.

The eggs and cysts of tardigrades are so resistant to other dangers that they are what?
A: Carried great distances, on the feet of other animals, to a different location.

What is the lifespan of tardigrades?
A: The lifespan ranges from 3–4 months for some species, up to 2 years for other species.

Tardigrades are considered to be able to survive what?
A: Complete global mass extinction events due to astrophysical events, such as gamma-ray bursts, or large meteorite impacts.

Some of them can withstand extremely cold temperatures down to how cold?
A: 1 K (−458 °F; −272 °C) (close to absolute zero).

Others can withstand extremely hot temperatures up to how hot?
A: 420 K (300 °F; 150 °C) for several minutes.

They can withstand pressures about how many times greater than those found in the deepest ocean trenches?
A: six times.

Those little water bears can even stand ionizing radiation at what doses?
A: Doses hundreds of times higher than the lethal dose for a human.

Tardigrades can survive in the vacuum of what?
A: Outer space.

They can go without food or water for how long?
A: More than 30 years.