Lately, I’ve been crocheting some pretty dark stuff. Viruses. Black holes.

So I thought I’d try something a little nicer. A tiny, mild-mannered creature that spends its days paddling around in moss and bothering no one.

A water bear!

It looks like this:

Image credit: Willow Gabriel, Goldstein Lab via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5)

I know what you’re thinking:

That is the most adorable creature I have ever laid eyes on.

I absolutely agree!

look at the beady little eyes! Image credit: Frank Fox via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

While they’re officially called tardigrades (latin for “slow stepper,” referring to their unhurried approach to life), they go by an array of equally cute nicknames: water bears, moss piglets, space bears. Why someone looked at this thing and thought “bear” or “piglet” is beyond me; but the “space” comes from the fact that scientists shot a few into orbit and exposed them to the cosmic void for 10 days, which they spent floating around, raising little tardigrade families (complete with little tardlets), and presumably looking for moss.

IN THE VACUUM OF OUTER SPACE.

water bear under the microscope, presumably after lunch (arrow points to stomach full of moss salad) Image credit: DSparrow14 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

They can also survive temperatures close to absolute zero and up to 304 degrees Fahrenheit, withstand 1000 times the radiation levels that would kill a human, and handle pressures six times those at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.

In other words, tardigrades are tiny, unassuming, moss-dwelling micro-animals from Planet Krypton.

How do they deal with stress? By shriveling up into a little tardigrade raisin called a tun. They can survive, dehydrated, in the tun state for decades. Thus, they prove that curling into a ball and playing dead for several years is a perfectly valid stress coping mechanism. (I knew it!)

Needless to say, here on Earth they can live pretty much wherever they please. They’ve been found on every continent, including Antarctica. However, they prefer to snuggle up in a nice bed of moss, or a patch of moist lichen.

If you happen to have a mossy tree and a microscope nearby, you can see them for yourself… or you can just crochet one.

sewing on the tardi-legs.

This little guy’s legs aren’t quite anatomically correct- real tardigrade legs point downward instead of to the side. However, just like his real-life counterparts, he can survive being nuked: I made him using cotton yarn, because in addition to being soft and snuggly, you can microwave it no sweat*.

This brand of yarn happens to be lavender-scented. I didn’t realize this until my room began to smell like a febreeze commercial.

Just fill him up with dry rice, microwave him for 30 seconds or so, and you’ve got yourself a nice little tardigrade hand warmer!

D’aww.

* You can’t microwave acrylic yarn (trust me). I’ve heard that wool yarn is microwavable, but I haven’t tried it. return