ISTH Founding Ceremony and Tardigrade Hunt

At 4:05pm on March 20th, 2015  the International Society of Tardigrade Hunters was founded. To celebrate founding members participated in a collecting expedition on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus followed by a timed tardigrade hunting session.

Kiera (left), Sophie (right), and Jenny (back) look for water bears during ISTH's time tardigrade hunting competition.

One of the beautiful tardigrades Mark found.

A closeup view of Mark's prize tardigrade. Love the palps around this specimen's mouth.

Tardigrade hunters (left-right: Frank Smith, Mark Slabdonick, Jenny Heppert) gather moss and lichen for the tardigrade hunting competition.

There was some intense competition during the timed tardigrade hunt. The winners after 15 minutes of hunting were:
1st place: Dr. Mark Slabodnick with 3 tardigrades
2nd place: Jennifer Heppert with 2 tardigrades
3rd place: Sophie Tintori with 1 tardigrade.

Congratulations to the winner of ISTH's Founding Ceremony tardigrade hunting competition Dr. Mark Slabodnick. Mark found 3 tardigrades during the 15 minute times competition.

The collecting continued for another half hour following the competition. In total 27 wild tardigrades were found! ISTH will continue feature a new tardigrade every week on this blog. If you have any tardigrades or pictures of tardigrades you've found that you'd like us to feature do let us know.

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Happy (water) bear hunting!
-Thomas Boothby