Friday, March 25, 2016

Ode To The Waterbear (Tardigrada) [Poem by Clara B. Jones]

Ode To The Waterbear (Tardigrada)

What animal is handsomer than you?
Oh, Tardigrade, I praise your will to live.
In hostile habitats your types survive,
with fossils from the Cambrian profuse.

Sometimes you prey on small invertebrates
or feed on algae when not drying out,
I watch you through my Nikon microscope
using your two hind legs to grasp substrate.

Your mouth is muscular with sticky glands,
your brain has many lobes and paired neurons,
your rhabdomeric eyes are shaped like cones,
your sex life is discreet like any man's.

A feather in your cap, oh, Tardigrade!
No specimen of life was better made!

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