✨ The birth of water bears ✨ In this mama bear exuvia are two newborn tardigrades! Mother bears from this Hypsibius species lay their eggs inside their cuticle as they moult. You can even see the old claws that are still intact! The resistant cuticle helps to protect the eggs from predators and rough environmental conditions until the babies hatch 🐣 the mama bear is still alive and thriving in a brand new cuticle! Tardigrades possess a protective cuticle, or exoskeleton, made of chitin that molts when individuals get bigger. This cuticle is secreted by the epidermis of water bears and will shed multiple times in their life in order for cells to become bigger and bigger and thus, for tardigrades to develop and become mature. During molting, claw and stylet glands will secrete new claws and stylets. As for mama bears, they can lay their eggs freely in the environment or inside the exuvia during molting, which gives them extra protecting from environmental conditions. Like some other invertebrates such as nematodes, rotifers and gastrotrichs, the numbers of cells when an individual reaches maturity is fixed. Tardigrades, rotifers and nematodes all possess around 1000 cells when mature which will get bigger instead of undergoing further mitosis like us and every other vertebrates. This phenomenon of a determined fixed number of cells and their enlargement as organisms undergo further growth is called eutely, and it’s absolutely fascinating! 🤩 Video taken with my iPhone mounted on a BA310E Motic microscope with an @ilabcam adapter 🔬 Reference: Schill, R. O. (Ed.). (2018). Water Bears: The Biology of Tardigrades. Zoological Monographs. #fyp #microscope #science #biology #animals #cute