''Mopsechiniscus franciscae'' is a species of

tardigrade Tardigrades (), known colloquially as water bears or moss piglets, are a phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, who called them Kleiner Wasserbä ...

native to

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

. One of the most resilient species on Earth, it can survive conditions such as extreme temperatures, high pressure, poison, dehydration, radioactivity, and even vacuum, partly due to its ability to go into hibernation when deprived of water. Found in samples of moss growing on gravel along the shore of

Victoria Land Victoria Land is a region in eastern Antarctica which fronts the western side of the Ross Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf, extending southward from about 70°30'S to 78°00'S, and westward from the Ross Sea to the edge of the Antarctic Plateau. I ...

, the species has a reddish color, the gut can appear green after feeding. Males measure a quarter of a millimeter in length, and females are 50 percent larger.

References

Echiniscidae Fauna of Antarctica Animals described in 2014 {{Tardigrade-stub