Is it possible for tardigrades to evolve to be larger and eventually

>>8603474
>a strange bear

Are you referring to their nickname, water bear?


No, I don't think they can magically grown in size. That would be cool though.

They look nothing like a bear. The fuck you talking about?

>>8603483
>magically grown in size

Are you telling me evolution has never affected size? I'm not asking if it will evolve into a literal bear, a mammal, but could it be possible for this thing to ever evolve to be around that size?

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/01/are_tardigrades102542.html

This is a pretty interesting thing about tardigrades. Being merely the head remnants.. not sure what to think about this.

>>8603487
> Are you telling me evolution has never affected size?

I kind of just want to shoot myself in the face when I read dumb loaded questions like that.

No, that is not what I am telling you.

>>8603494
>Is it possible for tardigrades to evolve to be larger
>"No, I don't think they can magically grown in size."
>Are you telling me evolution has never affected size?
>"No, that is not what I am telling you."

What is going on? Why is this conversation happening?

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>>8603500
He's saying they can't grow magically; although, I can see your point that OP never implied they grew magically.

With certain pressures from the environment, yes. By the time it reaches bear size it would have changed significantly however. It won't be a tardigrade anymore.

If you want to send some of our life as seed to another planet, send this little guy

>>8603500
>What is going on? Why is this conversation happening?

What is happening is that someone does not understand how physics and evolution works.

Physics:

The tardigrades are highly specialized/evolved little critters that have developed systems optimized for their size. Their systems won't be able to scale up (as is) because of how Volume and Surface Area do not scale up proportionally.

Evolution:

Things don't just hop and skip around in evolution. You can't just grow a robot arm if it is convenient.

There has to be a viable pathway forward, because evolution is not magic.

Micro-organisms evolved in a very specific way to become big creatures.

If you wanted the tartigrade to evolve into a bear-like size, you would need it to de-evolve and then re-evolve.

Never-Say-Never:

Just for shits and giggles, I will correct my previous post. It is highly UNLIKELY that it would be able to suddenly evolve into a bear-sized creature.

>>8603474
>Is it possible for tardigrades to evolve to be larger and eventually something like a strange bear of some sorts?

Of course it's possible, but they wouldn't be tardigrades anymore obviously.

>>8603474
Considering that they have no significant skeletal or support structure, no they will not grow to large (macroscopic) size. They would need to change significantly which would make them something different than what they currently are.

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>>8603505
What is the likelihood of there being pressure for them to evolve in a way that will eventually lead them to being mammals? Any specifics on why they have to "de-evolve"?

I think it's neat that if you had them on another body in space where they can survive on, they could seed it with life.

>>8603529
That makes sense

Would the new creature be anything like a mammal?

>>8603531
Evolution doesn't work like that. It's technically possible for a Tardigrade to evolve to be something resembling a mammal like how bats resemble birds; but it's not possible for it to actually be a mammal.

>>8603531

"de-evolve" was some ad-hoc terminology that I made up. I don't think that word really exists in the biological field.

A specific would be what >>8603529 mentioned. They would need a way to evolve a skeletal system, likely with a spine (i.e. vertebrate).

I think the chance would be 0, but I am not a fortune teller. I would need to be omniscient to know the potential of a species.

> I think it's neat that if you had them on another body in space where they can survive on, they could seed it with life.

I agree. That would be really cool.

>>8603531
Tardigrades are optimized for their size. If they evolve into larger animal (which is so unlikely that can be approximated to impossible) they have to change pretty much every body functions and would be pointless to call them tardigrades anymore.

>>8603491
>citing an intelligent design website
bad b8 m8, 0/8

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Future inhabitants of Earth

>This study also found a high expression of novel Tardigrade-unique proteins, including Damage suppressor (Dsup), which was shown to protect against DNA damage from X-ray radiation. The same team applied the Dsup protein to human cultures cells and found that it suppressed X-ray damage to the human cells by ~40%

someone should tell elon musk to invest some money in engineering humans with tardigrade dna for his space x endeavours

>>8604598
Either he's 'a good boi' and wouldn't do it or he allready ahead of you on this.