Anne Morgan (text) and Jennifer Falkner (illustrator), Tardigrades: Nature’s Toughest Survivors, CSIRO Publishers, October 2024, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781486316052
You might ask, just as I did before reading this fascinating book, what is a tardigrade? They are microscopic animals, sometimes nicknamed ‘moss piglets’ or ‘water bears’, which are found all over the world, from the top of a mountain to the bottom of an ocean and have even survived a trip into space.
The book is written for the 6-9 year old age group. The environments where tardigrades are found are introduced before the reader learns about them as creatures which need to be seen using magnification, sometimes up to 100 times. They are eight-legged, not closely related to any other animal. They eat algae, bacteria or other microorganisms, using their mouth like a vacuum cleaner. They have been a part of the world for so long they survived the extinction of the dinosaurs. How? By turning into cysts or into a ball called a ‘tun’, a deep form of sleep where they are not quite dead, and recovering when the environment is not quite so stressful. Hence the subtitle of the book.
The final pages give a scientific description of tardigrades. There’s a glossary of many key words from the book. Teaching notes are available from the publisher’s website.
Recommended because it’s such an unusual topic.
Reviewed by Maureen Mann
