Tardigrade: Proposed Official State Micro-Animal of Washington
Two Washington State schools are nominating the Tardigrade as Washington State’s Micro-Animal. The science students at the Friday Harbor High School on San Juan Island and the students at Riverday School in Spokane have studied the Tardigrade as part of their science curriculum and found it to be worthy of becoming the Washington State Micro-Animal. The Tardigrade, which means “slow stepper” and is sometimes referred to as the “water bear” or “moss piglet,” is among the most resilient animals alive today, having survived the last five mass extinctions. They are found in fossil records 530 million years old. A native of Washington State, found in every county and habitat, it lives in mosses, lichens, marine and freshwater sediments, soil, seawater, freshwater, glaciers, hot springs, deserts, and rain forests. They are important ecologically because they eat other micro-organisms, such as crop-destroying nematodes, as well as plant cells, and help to clean both soil and water. Due to its amazing ability to withstand extremes, such as boiling mud pots in Yellowstone, glaciers on mountaintops, the vacuum of space, extreme drought, and radiation, the Tardigrade is being studied for new methods of adapting to climate change, as well as for preventing radiation damage from cancer treatments. Tardigrades may also be the first colonists on the moon since they crash-landed there in August of 2019. According to an international expert on Tardigrades, Lukasz Kaczmarek, they are likely to have survived because “Tardigrades can survive pressures that are comparable to those created when asteroids strike Earth, so a small crash like this is nothing to them.” This and many other extreme achievements of the Tardigrade make it the perfect Micro-Animal for the Evergreen State.
UPDATE: Washington state high school students attended legislative sessions in Olympia in support of making the tardigrade the state micro-animal.
Below are pictures of the students at the statehouse. Featured in one of the pictures is Representative Alex Ramel.
Before the hearing, Representative Alex Ramel took a few moments to talk to the students that would be testifying.