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I found this article while looking for something else. Turns out its rather easy to raise your own tardigrades (water bears, moss piglets, or whatever else you want to call them), needing nothing more than clean water and a source of algae. Looks like a fun project!

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 21.1881631

Bryan

SuiGenerisBrewing wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 01, 2023 1:58 pm

I found this article
Looks like a fun project!
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 21.1881631

Thanks, nice find !
I see a project in my future ( next time I find some tardi ! )

Sciento, Manchester, UK

the linked ref. gives :

• 2.1. Origin of the cultured species
  The commercial culture of parthenogenetic Hys.exemplaris, was
  provided by Sciento (Manchester, UK)

which was initially exciting
a quick google showed
http://www.sciento.co.uk/
but, sadly, this is an abandoned site (leads to a gambling page !)

does anyone have any more info. or an alternative source in the UK ?

If it’s any help … The listed address is 61 Bury Old Road, M45 6TB

https://earth.app.goo.gl/tRT168
#googleearth

MichaelG.

MichaelG. wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 08, 2023 8:33 pm

61 Bury Old Road, M45 6TB

Thanks for that find,
a google shows it is now "Glatt Butchers"
looks like I am too late for Sciento

SWmicro wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 08, 2023 10:57 pm

MichaelG. wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 08, 2023 8:33 pm

61 Bury Old Road, M45 6TB

Thanks for that find,
a google shows it is now "Glatt Butchers"

Or the Welcome Inn

https://findit.wigantoday.net/company/1299400662999040

MichaelG.

Yes "or/and" ,, same street address different post codes ! That must confuse the postie

Meanwhile I have found the old Sciento web site on archive.com
https://web.archive.org/web/20180208122 ... nto.co.uk/
Looks like they ceased trading Feb/Mar 2021
That is a shame, very interesting catalogue.

I was planning on giving it a go with "wild" tardigrades. I have a bird bath that pretty frequently hosts a few, and they always seem to be filled with algae.

I was hoping to do a short-cut ! ( My 7 year old grand daughter arrived home from school one day last year and told her mother she wanted to see a tardigrade ! She had found a book in the library showing them. )

Looks like it will have to be the wild route for us as well.

Some questions then arise :
1) how fast do they multiply ?
ie. find one, wash the slide off into culture dish, wait for a prolific culture to develop (assuming it is also in-egg ) so g'dad can find an example quickly before youngster gets bored of waiting.

2) what pests do they suffer from ? To avoid washing off extra slides of more 'found' tardis into a culture if a pest is also seen on a slide !

SWmicro wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 09, 2023 3:06 pm

Meanwhile I have found the old Sciento web site on archive.com
https://web.archive.org/web/20180208122 ... nto.co.uk/
Looks like they ceased trading Feb/Mar 2021
That is a shame, very interesting catalogue.

That’s a very useful find, Thanks !!

MichaelG.

Thank you, thank you, Bryan for this terrific link....what an amount of work to maintain a variety of 'water bears/ tardigrades/ moss piglets' in an enriched dense culture...a 'factory farm of sorts' for these meiofauna oh so enmeshed in natural communities where their numbers and predation foot prints are so complex and long term entrained to habitat changes. Not as manifested in ' water bear dense cultures'. My sense is these 'factory farmed' water bears will offer clues to mechanisms of semi death/ cryptobiotic states' cellular life forms often achieve. As a child I stumbled upon 'blooms of Hydra oligactis ( brown hydras)'..over the decades I have enjoyed other species blooms...but from the literature/ from able field scientists...I sense 'water bears do not bloom'. All the crucial enzyme surveys in these 'unnatural-factory farmed water bears' may glean insights to cryptobiosis/ survival in harsh enviroments....go for it.

But the wilder/ natural communities with which water bears evolved in/ participate in offer strong insights to how our 'real world'...not our 'test tube world' has carried on..and now we humans shuffle the cards on all the natural order ( ' the anthropocene era many scientists call this time of human footprint disrupting oh so many global balanced cycles ).

Thank you, Bryan for that precious link!!! So many 'open access journals/ journal articles' offered by your link. For two hours I was drinking up open access articles from your wonderful link...thank you so much, charlie g/finger lakes,NY