As promised we will present two time lapse video clips featuring the hatching process of echiniscus tardigrades - as far as we know these are unique and unequalled in the internet!

The tardigrade babies would be almost visible with the bare eye as their body length of about 0.1 mm is similar to the optical resolution of the human eye. But, of course, this would mean a red dot or a single tardigrade pixel - no detail. Even with subdued light and with a rather big water volume in the micro aquarium we can see much more by means of our microscope.

The youngsters are very lively already in their first minute; they resemble their parents closely. But the young echinisci have only two claws on each leg whereas the adults have four. After their first moulting the young tardigrades receive their complete set of four legs.

If you should be among our new readers you might want to have a glance now at our magazine issues featuring  young  and  senile tardigrades  .

Video clip: echiniscus tardigrades, hatching.
Accelerated by a factor of 150.

When looking closer you will notice a two claw leg for a fraction of a second.

Reduced image quality due to a rather big water volume in the micro aquarium and due to the subdued light.

In the second clip the remaining empty eggshell can bee seen more clearly. In normal light this eggshell looks fully transparent like one of those modern florist's packages. Overall an ultra-thin but mechanically stable and recyclable packaging.

Video clip: echiniscus tardigrades, hatching.
Accelerated by a factor of 150.

Reduced image quality due to a rather big water volume in the micro aquarium and due to the subdued light.

We have picked out some decisive still images for you. On the first image you will notice no particular event. But 30 seconds later (second still image) the tardigrade has already pushed out a first leg and 60 seconds later (third still image) we will become aware of the fact that nothing will be going to stop our young lady.

time: 00 seconds

time: 30 seconds

time: 60 seconds

In any case there must have been pretty little space in the egg.
Some authors think that the tardigrades in fact do not pierce their eggshell by means of the stylets but instead burst it by mere pressure increase: so a kind of self-explosion might be their starting point into life.

© Text, images and video clips by  Martin Mach  (webmaster@baertierchen.de).
Water Bear web base is a licensed and revised version of the German language monthly magazine  Bärtierchen-Journal . Style and grammar amendments by native speakers are warmly welcomed.

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