As usual we collected some clean sea sand and shell
gravel containing samples by means of a plastic film container (one
of those from ancient analogue photography times). It contained shell fragments,
sea urchin stick fragments, medium sized sand grain etc.
Back at the hotel we quickly found a "new" tardigrade. Relying on our
previous experience we delayed the better quality photographic documentation
into the future, planning a re-examination when back home.
In fact we had learnt from sand samples containing Echiniscoides and
Batillipes that the maritime tardigrades normally will survive even
in a very minimalistic micro aquarium for weeks and months, probably even years.
But then, back at home in Munich we were terribly disappointed: no tardigrade
at all could be found in those samples any more! After long search we came across
a tardigrade cuticula (left after moulting) - better than nothing:
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