Discover the Tardigrade

Question 1 · multiple choice

Which environment provides the right combination of shelter and feeding space for a Tardigrade?

warm coral reefs with host sea anemones sandy or muddy Atlantic coasts, bays, and estuaries woodlands, farms, grasslands, deserts, and cities films of water around moss, lichen, soil, and freshwater plants

Question 2 · multiple choice

Which menu would require the fewest changes from the normal diet of a wild Tardigrade?

tiny animals, algae, or plant cells depending on species mainly fruit, plus insects and small animals worms, insect larvae, crustaceans, and small fish zooplankton, eggs, larvae, and tiny drifting animals

Question 3 · multiple choice

Which timing clue belongs in a field guide entry for a Tardigrade?

often hunts separately at night after schooling by day activity follows the presence of liquid water often hides by day and forages at night forages mainly by day after warming in the morning sun

Question 4 · multiple choice

Choose the most accurate description of a Tardigrade in motion.

swims with a tall dorsal fin and wide sweeping turns runs rapidly on long legs walks slowly on eight stubby legs with claws runs between burrows and stands upright to scan the horizon

Question 5 · multiple choice

Which claim about a Tardigrade's adaptation is scientifically accurate?

different worker sizes cut leaves, defend trails, garden fungus, and remove waste rough tongue papillae help scrape meat from bones and groom fur concentrated urine and dry droppings reduce water loss forms a dried tun state when water disappears and metabolism nearly stops

Question 6 · multiple choice

Which breeding-season clue correctly points to a Tardigrade?

lays eggs that develop through miniature juvenile stages a calf develops for about twenty-two months before birth pups are born in a sheltered den and taught to swim later calves are born during a brief spring period and move within hours

Question 7 · multiple choice

How does a Tardigrade usually balance solitary and group life?

mostly solitary and gathers at some winter dens mostly solitary at microscopic scale mostly solitary and den-based mostly solitary but gathers in huge overwintering clusters

Question 8 · multiple choice

Which statement best explains the place of a Tardigrade in a food web?

disperses large forest seeds far from parent trees predates aquatic invertebrates and small vertebrates feeds within tiny moss and soil food webs consumes plankton and feeds turtles, fish, and other predators

Question 9 · multiple choice

Which survival response is correctly matched to a Tardigrade?

dives among stinging tentacles when threatened hard shell, spines, and a tail used to right the body uses speed, zigzagging, dens, and a strong musky scent enters cryptobiosis rather than fighting or fleeing

Question 10 · true false

True or False: A tardigrade communicates partly through low rumbles that travel through air and ground.

True False