To find a new species, sometimes, you just need to bend down where almost no one is looking: on a piece of moss, on a lichen attached to the rock, in that tiny part of the island that remains out of the postcards. This is what happened in Giannutri, in the Tuscan Archipelago. In samples collected during a study linked to wild bees, researchers have identified a new water bear, a never-before-described tardigrade now named Paramacrobiotus mariettae.
The name comes from Marietta Moschini, the woman linked to one of the most stubborn stories of the island, who over time also became a ghost, a voice, a presence handed down between memory and legend. The scientific description of the species was published with the title dedicated to the first Paramacrobiotus with elongated nails discovered in Giannutri.
From the mosses collected to study wild bees, a tardigrade with very long nails emerged
The discovery was born within a broader work on the biodiversity of the island, carried out as part of the scientific activities between the Tuscan Archipelago National Park and the Department of Biology of the University of Florence. The collaboration between the Park and the Florentine University has for years concerned the ecosystems of the smaller islands, including Giannutri, with monitoring and interventions on the most fragile vegetation, habitats and ecological dynamics.
The starting point was the world of wild bees. Giannutri was treated as an open-air laboratory, an island small enough to make legible some ecological relationships that elsewhere are lost in the background noise. In recent studies on pollinators, researchers have also worked on the presence of honey bees and the possible competition with wild species, observing how the pressure of the hives can change the availability of nectar, pollen and the behavior of native insects.
From there the focus broadened. The moss and lichen samples collected on the island were also observed to understand what was happening in the smaller communities, those who live where humidity is trapped for a while and then disappears. Mosses and lichens are shelters, pantries, organic condominiums. Almost invisible organisms can live inside, algae, microorganisms, small invertebrates. Among these there are tardigrades, those chubby and microscopic animals nicknamed “water bears” for their clumsy appearance, including eight legs.
Giannutri’s samples reached specialists from the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Sciences, including Matteo Vecchi, Daniel Stec and Daniele Camarda. There the detail that changes everything emerged: between the two species of tardigrades found in the moss of the island, one showed a clear genetic distance from the already known species and, above all, an unusual shape. Its paws bear very long nails, a trait never observed in that way in other species of the same genus. Enough to leave the “already seen” box and enter the world fauna with its own name.
Tardigrades have a fame almost disproportionate to their size. They usually measure fractions of a millimeter, live in humid environments, feed on algae, fungi, bacteria, rotifers, nematodes and other small organisms, depending on the species and context. The Paramacrobiotus genus is known in many areas of the world and includes species also studied for their ability to survive, reproduce and adapt to difficult conditions.
When the environment dries out, many tardigrades enter an extreme state: they contract, lose water, take the shape of a tiny barrel, and slow their metabolism to almost imperceptible levels. This strategy, called cryptobiosis or anhydrobiosis when it depends on dehydration, allows them to resist conditions that would be definitive for other animals. Scientific studies and reviews document their resistance to space vacuum, radiation, very low temperatures and severe environmental stress, especially in the dehydrated state.
The scene, said without laboratory emphasis, remains powerful: an organism empties itself of water, closes down, suspends almost everything, crosses a border that resembles a very hard sleep. Then the humidity returns. The body relaxes, the legs regain shape, the metabolism restarts. Microscopic life, with the face of someone who has just waited for the end of the world inside a drop.
For Giannutri, however, the most important part lies in the scale. Paramacrobiotus mariettae is currently only known there, on an island of about two and a half square kilometers. A tiny portion of the Tyrrhenian Sea that adds an endemic species to the world’s fauna and reminds us of how island biodiversity is often hidden under the first layer of visible things: not just birds, reptiles, rare plants, butterflies. Even tiny invertebrates, organisms that require tools, patience and people willing to look where tourism passes without lowering their gaze.
Marietta Moschini, a life out of place and now a name engraved in taxonomy
The choice of name takes the discovery out of the slide and brings it back to the island. Marietta Moschini belonged to the Florentine bourgeoisie and linked her life to that of Gualtiero Adami, a former Garibaldi officer. According to local reconstructions, Adami arrived in Giannutri in the nineteenth century and remained there until his death; Marietta joined him in 1889 and the two lived a story far from the social rules of the time, immersed in a harsh, isolated island, much less tamed than the one we visit today in the summer.
After Gualtiero’s death, Marietta remained alone in Giannutri for another five years, leading a retired existence, almost like an anchorite, without returning to the mainland. He died in 1927. His story, passed through oral tradition, memories of fishermen and subsequent reconstructions, has over time taken on the contours of legend. From there the story of Marietta’s ghost was born, a presence that still wanders on the island, attached to the rocks, to the ruins, to the wind that changes mood between Cala Maestra and Cala Spalmatoio.
Calling a tardigrade mariettae means putting together two different forms of resistance. On the one hand, a tiny animal, capable of withstanding the loss of water and prohibitive conditions by closing itself in an essential form. On the other, a woman who chose a lateral life, outside the expectations of her environment, and remained on an island even when the island had become above all absence. Taxonomy, every now and then, has these strange moments: it seems cold, precise, full of Latin suffixes, then it lets a human story in through the back door.
The discovery also weighs on the Park. Protected areas are often told through animals that are easier to love, photograph and recognise. A hawk, a turtle, a dolphin, a flower. Here the protagonist requires a microscope and a certain training in humility. Protecting an archipelago also means protecting what escapes the gaze, what lives among the lichens and mosses, what enters the records of science after having remained in its damp corner for who knows how long, without fanfare.
Giannutri, with this new species, becomes even smaller and bigger at the same time. Small in actual size, almost a fragment of limestone in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Large for everything it continues to contain: wild bees, Mediterranean plants, Roman ruins, legends, a ghost of a woman and a little water bear with nails too long to go unnoticed. Sometimes biodiversity needs immense forests. Other times a lichen is enough for her. And someone who stops to look at it.
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