When we ask people, what's the most indestructible and more to have ever lived on earth we were hit with a barrage of different suggestions
Everything from dinosaurs and reptiles to invertebrates and fish were thrown into the ring
But what's the actual answer?
well
If you google most indestructible animal this little critter pops up with headlines claiming that they can survive incredible
Levels of radiation live at the bottom of the ocean or in the vacuum of space
Now I don't want to say Google is wrong, but it's definitely not right either
So what is the most indestructible animal to have ever lived on earth?
Let sun pick this tangled web of Earth's greatest survivors
I'm sure this is the bunt and we're here to saw the truths from the myths and the facts from the misconceptions
With so many pretenders for the crown of most indestructible animal. Let's start with some of the oldest candidates
I'm talking seriously old
prehistoric in fact going all the way back to the Cretaceous period
You might expect fan favorite dinosaurs like the t-rex to be pretty Hardy
Instead it turns out that the most indestructible
Dinosaurs weren't the ones trying to kill each other, but rather those critters who just wanted to eat their greens in peace
One such species of dinosaur was the angular saw which might easily be mistaken for a tank
The uo+ if Alice is probably the best example of this genus
Covered with thick spines across its back and sides of its head
for protection even its eyelids were armored its skull was so thick that an attack from a raptor like a
Deinonychus would leave barely a scratch and it could withstand a bite from a Tyrannosaurus Rex
While some though no experts even believed that their armor could stop small gunfire
and fossils show that if one of these badasses swung
Well their ass then its club-like tail could break the legs of a t-rex
now obviously
Ankylosaurs aren't invincible
Otherwise, they'd still be roaming around today. In fact even back when they were around
They occasionally ran into difficulty. You see they had one fundamental weakness
If something managed to flip it over onto its back
Its soft Armour free belly would be exposed and that often meant getting over for an angular sore
but according to paleontologist Kenneth carpenter
This wouldn't have been easy for a predator to achieve
It would be difficult even without the armor to get a purchase on it because his body is relatively flat
Combine this with their incredible defenses and most predators just left them alone in favor of easier prey
Console and blame them you think a tank wouldn't be easy
But I'm afraid it doesn't matter if the gyro place if Alice was the most indestructible dinosaur because around 66 million years ago
it's fair to say there was a little incident and
by little incident
I am of course referring to that time a huge meteorite slammed into Earth causing the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and 75%
of all of the species that
Still leaves an awful lot of survivors though. So surely some of them must have a claim to the title of most indestructible animal
How about the humble crocodile other than size this modern-day living fossil hasn't really evolved in around
200 million years fitting the definition of if it ain't broke. Don't fix it
So how did it survive a near apocalypse?
Well to start with the KT extinction as it's known wasn't an overnight event
It took place over a few hundred to a few thousand years
So while Crocs have an impressive armored skin similar to the late ankylosaurs?
It was in defense mechanisms like this that were key to its
Survival the species that survived were those that were best adapted to the aftermath and not necessarily the initial event
Blaster crocodile with an asteroid and you'll end up with a dead crocodile what worked in their favor however was their habitat?
While this extinction event wiped out land dwelling dinosaurs pterosaurs and the majority of marine reptiles crocs got off
relatively lightly
Living between land and freshwater lakes or saltwater
estuaries allowed them to avoid the worst hit environments on land and in saltwater oceans crocs are also
Cold-blooded allowing them to slow their metabolism and survive when food was in short supply
Which it most definitely was in the post-apocalyptic world following the KT extinction plus most
paleontologists now consider dinosaurs to be at the warm-blooded end of the spectrum and when food became scarce
So did they while we're right to be impressed with how crocodiles survived when lots of other creatures died out?
They weren't exactly the only species to make it through those dark times
There were plenty of other species that had the ability to endure those trying conditions
I mean we wouldn't be here today without the survival of our early primate relatives
In fact a whole host of animals, you know today have barely evolved since he lived alongside the dinosaurs
There's the duckbill platypus sharks and green sea turtles
But one little critter has been around long before all of these aquatic greats
crawling along the present-day seafloor
You'll find the horseshoe crab this humble animal might not look like much but they have withstood
Three of the planet's mass extinctions and date back
450 million years
Having lived through some of the most dramatic
Environmental changes earth has ever seen they're an incredibly adaptable species
They can feed on nearly any organic matter have an armored shell that can heal over pretty much any wound and they can survive
with very low oxygen levels
There's just one problem us
despite surviving nearly half a billion years in
2016 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature put these guys on the vulnerable list
aside from habitat loss
These creatures are harvested by the pharmaceutical industry for their bacteria indicating blood
the net result has been a steady decline of their relation as
Unfortunate as that is we can't exactly have the most indestructible animal sitting on a vulnerable list
With humans now being the biggest threat to these epic survivors. Let's bring in another man-made destructive force
nuclear bombs
Surely anything that can get through a nuclear blast must have a shot at the title of most indestructible animal
Now I'd imagine the creature that springs to mind is the formidable little cockroach the idea that they can handle a nuclear explosion
has been around since reports circulated that these mini beasts were the only survivors found in the rubble following their Oshima and
Nagasaki atomic bombs
But the fact is cockroaches can't withstand the intense energy released by a nuclear explosion
Their presence after the atomic bombs was due to their ability to withstand
Extreme levels of radiation as a point of reference the aforementioned atomic bombs released radiation levels of around 100 Gray's each
roaches can withstand up to
1,000 Gray's why are these little guys so resilient to radiation?
Well, it's all down to their bodies simple design and slow cell cycle
You see cells are particularly susceptible to radiation
And they're dividing and renewing the human cell cycle is fairly constant and takes place every 24 hours
Cockroach is comparatively change once a week and it takes 48 hours
So their window of vulnerability is much narrower
These guys won't be walking away from the hypocenter of a nuclear bomb and to be honest
No animal can but they can hold their own host of nuke
they've also got a pretty good track record of survival having evolved around 200 million years ago living alongside the crocodile and
surviving the KT extinction
So far, I think we've been too easy on the animal kingdom. We need to up the stakes
Really ramp up the level of destruction what could possibly survive a huge asteroid hitting the planet?
Billions of tons of rock into the air while simultaneously a series of the biggest volcanic eruptions take place
Filling the atmosphere with ash blocking the Sun
Actually, that's not enough
Let's detonate a whole bunch of nuclear bombs for good measure now we should have the biggest mass extinction ever to occur on a planet
What animal could get through that?
Well somewhere amongst the rubble and fallout of our once thriving planet
You'll find those little fellas we mentioned at the start a creature known as a tardigrade
affectionately referred to as water bears or moss piglets
These guys have been on earth for around 520 million years
It can be found in pretty much every environment imaginable
They can survive in the vacuum of space
Withstand the pressures of the deepest oceans go without food or water for 30 to 40 years be frozen at minus
328 degrees Fahrenheit or be heated to more than 300 degrees Fahrenheit
They can even cope with radiation levels up to
6,000 grays a human for comparison would be lucky to walk away from the five grays
There's one rather large problem
However with how we perceive tardigrades these little guys can't survive all these extreme environments
whilst going about their daily business
Take this little tardigrade
for example
It would have died during the apocalypse you see tardigrades as they exist from day to day aren't very
Indestructible at all. In fact, you could kill them pretty easily if you catch them unprepared
To become indestructible these micro animals put themselves into a protective state of cryptobiosis
where they tuck their data legs in and excrete
97% the moisture from their body like this they become what's known as a ton
They produce a form of antifreeze called glycerol and convert jelly-like
proteins into glassy cocoons there protect all parts of the tardigrade that are sensitive to
dehydration as a tan, the tardigrade reduces its metabolism by
99.99% and then simply waits for a more habitable environment to become available
However, here comes the biggest misconception about these cuddly little pig-faced creatures
They can't all survive old extreme environments
individually and they can live in the most extreme habitats with species like the thermos odium Misaki found living in acidic hot springs and
Other marine tardigrades able to endure life in the crushing depths of the ocean trenches
however
There's no evidence that these marine tardigrades have the ability to transform into a ton indeed
These tardigrades will actually die in freshwater whilst other terrestrial or freshwater species die in high concentrated
Saltwater and in fact the species I mentioned in the acidic Hot Springs is now thought to be extinct after an earthquake
It's also noted that during experiments only some tardigrades survived being boiled frozen and subjected to radiation
Not to be too hard on these guys
But their transformation into an indestructible tun can take several minutes to a couple of hours
So it's not exactly an instantaneous defense mechanism
Plus the tardigrades that famously survived their trip into space were already in the tonnes state
So why are these guys popularized as the toughest most indestructible?
animal well
You see the headlines that gave them their incredible status were based on a study by
Theoretical physicists who lumped all the tardigrades and their abilities together what in fact there are around
1250 species William R Miller an expert on tardigrades explains the merging of the species together
Simply doesn't work
It's like saying a sixgill shark at the bottom of the ocean is the same as the snow leopard in Siberia
When approaching it from a biological point of view
Lumping them all in as one it's just unfair when trying to establish the most in destruct
animal and in fact Miller points out how unjust they're popularized indestructible status is
They're quite easily murdered. We kill thousands of them every day
in an apocalyptic sense, however a
2017 study found that in the ultimate life destroying Astrophysical event
The little water bears living at the bottom of the Marianas Trench would endure and that it would take the world's oceans to boil away
Before all these little creatures would be wiped out
Problem is in real-life scenarios
You could quite easily just squish them and ferocious predators like snails
Routinely do as they chomp down on them for a tasty meal
Although they'd still be resilient to getting squashed between your fingers because they're so small
They're probably just hide in the irregularities of your fingerprints right while we can agree that tardigrades are incredibly resilient
They can die
But what about animals that like to laugh in the face of death?
Ones that have been squished and chopped up, but in true Terminator style even generate back to life
Surely that is what indestructible is really about
And incredibly there are a lot of animals out there with regenerative
Powers from salamanders regrowing their tails to sea cucumbers regrowing their organs
Okay, let's start with probably the cutest of the candidates so far
the axolotl
This little fella can regrow one of the most important organs of all not only can they regenerate a missing limb?
Tail or even their lower jaw, but also parts of their brain and heart
If they're paralyzed in the back
They can make all new neurons and new connections that allow them to use their legs again
Which is really one of the most incredible examples of recovery
But as incredible as that is there's still only regenerating parts of the body now
I'm sure I'm not the only one who heard the rumor of school about earthworms
You know the theory if you chop one in two, it will generate into two living earthworms
True the head end may survive and regrow a stunted tail
But once the nerve endings have stopped it wriggling around you'll most likely just end up with two halves
There is however distant relatives known as planarian flatworms and
Scientists are describing these incredible creatures as having regenerative superpowers
Research has looked at a range of these species since 1901
But it's only today that scientists are beginning to understand is true abilities
This creature can regrow its entire head but not only that it retains learned
Information as though it had never been decapitated
and it doesn't stop there this incredible little worm can regenerate from as little as
10,000 cells which is around only one
279th of a planarian flatworms body. How do they do it? Well, it's all down to the fact that their adult stem cells are pluripotent
Meaning they can potentially become any cell in the body with other animals
Once they hit adulthood their stem cells become limited and can only produce cells for specific purposes
blood stem cells produce blood cells for example
But they can't produce skin cells with
Planarians special adult stem cells called mere blasts can produce all the different types of cells that make up a complete
planarian in theory you could chop one worm into
279 pieces and so long as each part contained one of the special near blast cells and you'd have
279 new worms within about two weeks and this process isn't limited to one round of regeneration
These creatures are in way
immortal seems impossible
But in order to heal or regenerate stem cells divide in other animals as this process is repeated
The cells start to decay and show signs of aging when they age
Stem cells can no longer divide and can't replace the exhausted cells in our bodies
However, stem cells Implanon and flat worms don't stop dividing and so avoid the aging process
What does kill these little guys however is?
Radiation but so long as they remained enough healthy cells in the worm
They could recover in fact scientists at MIT
have discovered that by transplanting one neo blast cell called a chrono genic neo blast from a healthy worm to a worm that's received a
Lethal dose of radiation the net one cell will regenerate the entire worm
So with all these incredible candidates with amazing abilities
Which animal comes out on top well to answer this fairly
You need to split them into categories
If nuclear apocalypse or the ultimate planet wide extinction fell upon us then tardigrades would inherit the earth in the more day-to-day
Scenario of forcing off predators than the you Oprah syphilis would live to fight another day
but if a bizarre situation occurred where you were chopped up
Stamped on and smushed then the planarian flatworm would be the only creature
eventually wriggling away to live another day on the
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