Marc Mapalo News Today

Tardigrades, or water bears, are virtually indestructible. The eight-legged microscopic animals can withstand extreme temperatures, survive without food for decades, and even exist in a vacuum in space. But, despite being around for over 500 million years, they rarely appear on the fossil record.  Their miniature size and lack of hard tissue make it hard for them to fossilize.  Even when they do get preserved, the tiny creatures are hard to spot and often get overlooked.  Over the ...

Fossil tardigrades are extremely rare, but a new species trapped in amber is the most pristine specimen ever found, and could tell us more about them.

U.S. scientists say they have discovered a new species of microscopic tardigrades suspended in a piece of 16-million-year-old Dominican amber.

The discovery of a 16-million-year-old tardigrade preserved in amber was an extremely rare find. In fact, it is only the third ever tardigrade that was found in amber to be completely described and named. The seemingly indestructible creature is incredibly tiny but exceptionally mighty and obviously couldn’t escape the amber that trapped it so many... Read more »

Tardigrade fossils are hard to spot due to their tiny size. But experts found an ancient tardigrade hidden in amber from the Dominican Republic.

A fossilized tardigrade found in Dominican amber constitutes a rare branch of the family tree for these weirdly indestructible beasties.

Despite their long evolutionary history and global distribution, there is a lot lacking in the fossil record of the tiny creatures.

Scientists discovered an incredibly rare fossil suspended in 16 million-year-old amber: a never-before-seen species of tardigrade, a pudgy, aquatic critter that rarely crops up in the fossil record.

Tardigrades are notoriously hardy microscopic creatures, but one thing they’re not good at is fossilizing. Now an exceptionally well-preserved, “once-in-a-generation” tardigrade fossil has been found in amber, and assigned to a new species and genus.

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, can survive almost anything, from the depths of the ocean to space itself — but finding their fossils is a rare event that has only happened twice before.