The Boon of being Tardi

“That was quite a nice nap, wasn’t it?”

It feels life forces flowing back into its tiny body. It stretches its extremities in all directions as far as they can go. They are a bit stiff, but all still operational.

“Boy, that feels good! Let’s see: where am I and when?”

It activates its multiple sensory organs to their fullest functionality. Thousands of fine-tuned packets of information returns to its brain. Its primitive eyes do not have the same high resolution as ours, but hair-like sensors exceed all of our senses in sheer sensitivity.

“OK. It seems to be quite a bit later than when I fell asleep. What says my internal clock? 24 circuits around the big bright star! Wow, that may be a new record, for all I know.”

It senses another body coming closer. Too big for its much delayed breakfast. A predator perhaps? No, it is one of its own kind, but larger, probably female.

“High time for a bit of you-know-what! But no. Let me get my priorities straight. First I have to eat, then sort out my current state. There will be adequate time for pleasure later. ‘Slowly, slowly catches the mossy piglet’, as they say.”

Snuffling around, it finds some edible moss.

“This is the best vegetables I have tasted in years!” it grins. “In no time I will be my old self again. Or even a better, larger, brand new me.”

How many transmutations had it already have? It is not sure. Judging by the strain across all of its skin, a make-over is due, and very soon. Satiated for now, it turns its thoughts back to his new situation. Its natural GPS kicks in.

“Let me see. I’m more or less in the same general position than when I went into cryptobiosis. The air tastes differently, very much so. It’s cleaner, fresher. No chemical odours. There is more natural light. It all feels…. shall we say…. more wholesome.”

Too large in scale, too foreign in nature for it to fathom, it finds itself in the remaining shell of a broken glass tube. The surrounding location had been a biological laboratory – but that was years ago. The walls have tumbled, the roof has slumped, nature has reclaimed the floor. It is now 100% human-free. So is the surrounding area. So, sadly (or not?) may be all of the green-blue globe.

“While I was hibernating in this artificial vessel”, it realises, “huge events have taken place. I sense the lingering traces of radiation. Not that it bothers me. Many other lifeforms may have been terminated, I guess. Are we entering a new epoch?”

Indeed, a combination of deadly plagues, weather gone rogue – hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes – has shaken up the comfortable world of humans and many other species. A nearby nuclear power plant had ruptured. Those in the area, not killed already by viruses, exposure to extremes of hot and cold spells, falling buildings, devastating winds, fire or water, had practically melted – or died slow, torturous deaths in the aftermath. Great swathes of earth – if not all of it – was now, at last, and to the rest of nature’s great relief, largely HOMO SAPIENS-FREE.

“No smell, no trace of those enormous creatures, who had captured me, imprisoned me in this vial of crystal, stared at me through strange devices, then allowed me to dry out, shrivel up into a tun, to die – if I had been just any old species. Instead I 'slept' while they dissolved back into nature. How great is that!”

The tardigrade returns to the moss, that had also been restored to verdant life, once the glass of the test tube (quite durable, all things considered) eventually fractured, allowing moisture to enter through the cracks. Both ideal habitat and source of food, a patch of well-moistured moss is the little animal’s address of choice.

“Apparently I have stumbled into a brave new world. Who knows what the future may bring? However, keeping my priorities straight, let me eat some more and regain all of my strength and energy - then look out for the ladies. We have a new niche to fill, don’t we!”

In the mossy forest, it finds tiny lifeforms, bacteria, algae, lichens and the moss itself. Extending its tubular mouth telescopically, it pierces those organisms’ shells with two razor sharp spears, located inside its mouth, the sucks out their life-giving fluids. Its own organs, transformed into heat, cold and drought resistant crystal inside the dried out husk of its little body, now grow and thrive again. Its tough, armoured skin stretches, then bursts. It moults and steps out of the carapace, bigger, stronger and ready for love.

“Checking. All eight legs present and intact. Claws? Eight to a hand… sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four. Perfect! Mouth works just fine. As for my sexual and other organs, only time will tell. We’re fine with time, patient to wait. If anyone knows how to take its time, we water bears do!”

It soon finds a comely mate; the ladies are more common and larger – and fortunate for it (him?) this one is not in a cannibalistic mood. She also sheds, laying her eggs into the discarded cuticle. He sprays it with semen. They leave it there. The eggs are as tough as they are; the babies will be the most resilient little critters.

All around them, in the fractured vial and everywhere moist, other tardigrades have awaken too. Some are bigger, some smaller. Our friend is about an average millimetre in length. Belonging to a family of more than a thousand types, they are, in many respects, top of the class (biologically speaking). Surviving all previous extinctions, all six of them (well, seven now, it seems) and resistant to extremes temperatures, radiation and drought, the hordes of tardigrades are poised for this fresh new epoch.

“Who knows, in this new dawn, we may grow to fill the niche left by man; some of us may grow to a comparable size. Our brains may expand to house exceptional, even superior, modes of intelligence. We may very well do a better job of ruling the roost.”

Hopefully, if our little friend’s vision should ever materialise, the 'water bears' will avoid making the same mistakes we did. If not, I will rather stay extinct. With their strength, resilience and numbers, who would opt to live in a world dominated by clever, virtually indestructible, tank-sized critters, equipped with eight strong legs, armed with razor sharp claws and a maw that can stretch out and pierce my skin, then suck me dry like a pale pink orange…

“Just imagine, our babies grower bigger generation by generation – and smarter, much smarter. I can see the cities we’ll build, hear the music we’ll make, sense all the fun we’ll have in a world where tardigrades rule!

"Don’t you?”