Of course one could argue that this is a unique finding and
that the deposition in the shell did occur by accident.
But a look into the scientific literture reveals that scientists have
reported similar scenarios for other tardigrade individuals and other tardigrade
species. E.g. Ernst Marcus in his famous tardigrade monograph depicts
eggs of the tardigrade Hypsibius hastatus in a water flea shell
as well and remarks that chitinious remains of insects can serve as tardigrade
egg hides too, in this particular case referring to the species
Macrobiotus pullari .
The sober tardigrade scientist in his constant fight for non-emotional
scientific objectiveness will prefer to talk about a thigmotactic behaviour,
i.e. about an egg deposition that might be purely mechanically triggered by
some sort of material object, no matter what object.
On the other hand the amateur and tardigrade enthusiast will possibly believe that
those findings must be interpreted undoubtedly as undeniable proofs for the tremendous
intelligence of those tardigrade females that seem to be able to chose selectively
among the many objects in water in order to provide an optimum shelter
for their babies.
In any case, why not? We know that individuals of the Homo sapiens species
are able to choose among various TV channels, advertised merchandise
and a selection of restaurants ;-)
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