Milnesium inceptum from the Schönbuch nature reserve discovered to be a new species
A new tardigrade species was discovered by Dr. Ralph Schill from the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomolecular Systems (IBBS) at the University of Stuttgart. The species is now known as Milnesium inceptum, derived from the Latin term for pioneer or initiator. At the same time, Schill, together with colleagues from England, Poland and Japan, classified another tardigrade species as a neotype: Milnesium alpigenum, which had already been described in the middle of the 19th century but was no longer present as a preserved specimen. Tardigrades are survivalists. They occur in a wide variety of habitats and have the ability to survive long periods of time in a resting stage, in which they wait for better environmental conditions and have no detectable metabolism. For this reason, a steadily growing number of scientists are interested in these fascinating animals. One of the first species ever described was Milnesium tardigradum, which was named by the French zoologist Louis Michel François Doyère in the first half of the 19th century.
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