When you think of the toughest creatures on Earth, your mind probably goes to lions or crocodiles—or maybe even cockroaches.

But one of the world’s most indestructible animals is actually a microscopic, squishy, and oddly adorable creature called a tardigrade.

Known affectionately as water bears or moss piglets, they’re the real stars of Alex Riley’s gripping new book, Super Natural: How Life Thrives in Impossible Places.

Meet the Mighty Tardigrade

Discovered back in 1861, tardigrades were first described as “a little puppy-shaped animal very busy pawing about.”

Not exactly intimidating—but don’t let the cute nickname fool you. As Riley details, these tiny creatures are practically indestructible. They can survive:

Altitudes of 6,000 metres,
Being boiled alive for 30 minutes,
Crushing pressure 1,000 times greater than sea level,
Radiation that would obliterate humans,
And yes—even being launched into the vacuum of space.

Their secret? They can dry themselves out completely and go into a kind of suspended animation.

In that state, they don’t age. Seriously. No aging. It’s like a living pause button.

Life That Laughs at Limits

Tardigrades aren’t the only nature-defying oddballs in Riley’s book.

Fish swim happily in water that’s 2°C below freezing.

Some turtles can go six months without taking a single breath. And fungi are thriving… inside the Chernobyl reactor.

There’s also the case of the bar-headed goose, which somehow manages to migrate over the Himalayas—at altitudes of 8,000 metres—without falling out of the sky.

It’s all thanks to high-performance lungs and some wild tweaks in their blood cells.

Some scientists think these birds were already taking that flight path before the Himalayas even existed.

When Destruction Sparks Creation

One of the most mind-blowing parts of Riley’s exploration is how destruction in nature often paves the way for something new.

Billions of years ago, photosynthetic bacteria started pumping out oxygen—something our atmosphere barely had at the time. The result? A mass extinction.

But also? The birth of a new type of life that could use oxygen to thrive.

Fast-forward to around 440 million years ago: trees took over the supercontinent Pangaea and sucked so much carbon dioxide out of the air that Earth shifted from a hot greenhouse climate into an ice age, wiping out about 85% of all species.

Harsh? Yes. But also the beginning of a new evolutionary chapter.

Chernobyl’s Surprising Comeback

Think the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster made the area a dead zone? Think again. With humans gone, nature is flourishing.

Wildlife has returned, ecosystems are rebuilding, and it turns out animals care a lot less about radiation than they do about humans.

James Lovelock, the scientist behind the Gaia theory, even floated a radical idea: if we want to protect the rainforests, maybe we should dump radioactive waste there.

That way, people would stay out—and nature could bounce back.

Nature’s Quiet Resilience

Riley doesn’t shy away from today’s harsh realities. Climate change, pollution, collapsing ecosystems—these are very real, and very concerning.

But he also offers hope. No matter what we do, life itself isn’t going anywhere.

Even if humanity fades away, the tardigrades will keep soldiering on, adapting to whatever comes next, and maybe becoming something even weirder and more wonderful.

In the end, Super Natural isn’t just about biology—it’s about perspective.

Nature doesn’t need us. But we definitely need it.