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Description
For this contest, I was supposed to make a creature which can survive in extremely cold environments, so I picked the coldest environment I could think of: comets. On these comets live a tardigrade descendant, which is evolved from some genetically engineered ones planted on a comet by humans to see how much an organism could survive through. Because of collisions with space junk, these tardigrades spread to many objects throughout the solar system. They survive the colder part of the comet's orbit by going into cryptobiosis, and have a very slow metabolism even while they're awake. They reproduce once or twice every time the comet comes close to the sun, and heat up using leaflike extensions of the cuticle. Bodily fluids flow through these, heating the tardigrade up enough to function. Its back is full of a blackish algae which give it oxygen and nutrients. The feet are changed into long, anchoring taproots, as avalanches are common on comets and they need a way to stay on the ground during these. Their body is covered in pores which let water out as the liquid inside the tardigrade freezes, drying them up so that ice crystals don't damage their cells. It's around 3cm long, sometimes 5. Their 2 eyespots let them know how close they are to the sun.

Description
For this contest, I was supposed to make a creature which can survive in extremely cold environments, so I picked the coldest environment I could think of: comets. On these comets live a tardigrade descendant, which is evolved from some genetically engineered ones planted on a comet by humans to see how much an organism could survive through. Because of collisions with space junk, these tardigrades spread to many objects throughout the solar system. They survive the colder part of the comet's orbit by going into cryptobiosis, and have a very slow metabolism even while they're awake. They reproduce once or twice every time the comet comes close to the sun, and heat up using leaflike extensions of the cuticle. Bodily fluids flow through these, heating the tardigrade up enough to function. Its back is full of a blackish algae which give it oxygen and nutrients. The feet are changed into long, anchoring taproots, as avalanches are common on comets and they need a way to stay on the ground during these. Their body is covered in pores which let water out as the liquid inside the tardigrade freezes, drying them up so that ice crystals don't damage their cells. It's around 3cm long, sometimes 5. Their 2 eyespots let them know how close they are to the sun.