''Proechiniscus hanneae'' is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

tardigrade Tardigrades (), known colloquially as water bears or moss piglets, are a phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, who called them . In 1776, th ...

. It is the only species of ''Proechiniscus'', a genus within the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Echiniscidae The Echiniscidae are a family of tardigrades, a phylum of water-dwelling, eight-legged, segmented micro-animals. It is one of the four families in the order Echiniscoidea.

. The species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to Greenland, where it occurs on

Disko Island Disko Island (, ) is a large island in Baffin Bay, off the west coast of Greenland. It has an area of ,The 1998 Danish-German Excursion to Disko Island, West Greenland.
' Berichte zur Polarforschung, Bremerhaven, Bundesrepublik Deutschland : Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polarforschung, no. 330. The species was first described as '' Pseudechiniscus hanneae'' by Børge Petersen in 1951. It was placed in the new genus of ''Proechiniscus'' by

Reinhardt Møbjerg Kristensen Reinhardt Møbjerg Kristensen (born 1948) is a Danish invertebrate biologist, noted for the discovery of three new phyla of microscopic animals: the Loricifera in 1983, the Cycliophora in 1995, and the Micrognathozoa in 2000. He is also consider ...

in 1987.

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Further reading