| Mesostygarctus | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Tardigrada |
| Class: | Heterotardigrada |
| Order: | Arthrotardigrada |
| Family: | Stygarctidae |
| Genus: | Mesostygarctus Renaud-Mornant, 1979 |
Mesostygarctus is a genus of tardigrades, in the family Stygarctidae. [1] It was first described and named by Jeanne Renaud-Mornant in 1979.
A genus is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, as well as viruses, in biology. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus.
Tardigrades are a phylum of water-dwelling, eight-legged, segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, who gave them the name of "little water bears". The name Tardigrada was given in 1777 by the Italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani. They have been found everywhere: from mountaintops to the deep sea and mud volcanoes; from tropical rain forests to the Antarctic. Tardigrades are among the most resilient known animals, with individual species able to survive extreme conditions that would be rapidly fatal to nearly all other known life forms, such as exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures, air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation. Tardigrades have even survived exposure to outer space. About 1,150 known species form the phylum Tardigrada, a part of the superphylum Ecdysozoa. The group includes fossils dating from 530 million years ago, in the Cambrian period.
The Stygarctidae are a family of tardigrades. The family was first described by Schulz in 1951. The genus Neoarctus was first placed in the family Stygarctidae, but it was moved to a separate family, Neoarctidae, in 1998.
