BOLD Systems: Taxonomy Browser - Tardigrada {phylum}

Tardigrades (commonly known as waterbears or moss piglets) are small, water-dwelling, segmented animals with eight legs notable for being one of the most complex of all known polyextremophiles. They form the phylum Tardigrada, and part of the superphylum Ecdysozoa. It is an ancient group, with fossils dating from 530 million years ago, in the cambrian period. The first tardigrades were discovered by Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773. Since 1778, over 500 new tardigrade species have been found. Usually, Tardigrades are 1mm when they are fully grown. They are short and plump with 4 pairs of poorly articulated lobopodial limbs. Each limb has 4-8 claws also known as disks. Tardigrades all possess a buccopharyngeal membrane apparatus, which, along with the claws, are used to differentiate the different species. Tardigrades are covered in cuticle which contains chitin and protein. full article at Wikipedia

BOLD Stats

Specimen Records:	6,423	Public Records:	5,281
Specimens with Sequences:	5,503	Public Species:	379
Specimens with Barcodes:	2,866	Public BINs:	603
Species:	390
Species With Barcodes:	374