The scientists and volunteers searched the waters of Central Park in search of the not-very-elusive phylum Tardigrada, a group of chubby microscopic creatures often referred to as water bears or moss piglets. View Slideshow 
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Martin Shapiro is obsessed with moss piglets.
Shapiro, 11 years old, was in pig heaven this weekend, set loose to splash about in Central Park's usually forbidden muddy waters with a band of equally obsessed scientists in search of the not-very-elusive phylum Tardigrada, a group of chubby microscopic creatures often referred to as water bears or moss piglets.
Shapiro was participating in Central Park's first BioBlitz. Starting at noon last Friday, more than 350 scientists and volunteers combed the park's 843 acres, doggedly intent on finding and cataloging every species they encountered in a 24-hour period.
The event was intended to prove that an amazing assortment of life lurks everywhere, even in a completely human-made environment like Central Park, according to Jeff Stolzer, a spokesman for the Explorers Club, sponsors of the Blitz.
On Monday morning species stats were still being tallied. So far 836 species were spotted during the Blitz, including 393 types of plants, 78 species of moths, 46 species of birds, a dozen different kinds of fungi, seven species of mammals, three species of turtles, two species of frogs and two species of water bears/moss piglets.
One hundred seventy-two species were unidentified.
The impetus for the BioBlitz was last July's discovery of a new species of centipede in the park.
"People were surprised that new creatures could be living in the middle of New York City," Stolzer said. "So we decided to see what else was out there."
Armed with Tablet PCs donated by Microsoft, bands of bird, insect, reptile and bat trackers scanned the skies, sorted through dirt and debris, and peered under rocks. Four divers conducted aquatic inventories of the park's 150 acres of water.
"I found a rock," said diver Julia Tsai, after emerging from the Bethesda fountain. "And a beer bottle filled with sludge, which they're going to analyze for ... whatever."
Young Shapiro and his crew waded into the park waters and scooped up cups of murky liquid that they hoped contained tiny piglets and bears.
Shapiro's scientific explorations were cut short when the sun went down. But older scientists staked out the park all night, hanging white sheets from trees and baiting them with an assortment of rotten fruit.
The ultraviolet-illuminated sheets were soon crawling with spiders, moths and beetles, which scientists plucked from the cloth and plopped into jars.
"It's gotta be some kind of weird art project," explained one man to his date as they strolled past the insect group.
A few miles north from the bug team, a dozen people were riling up owls. The team played recordings of territorial owl screeches, and within minutes several real owls showed up to have words with the assumed intruders.
The screech owls weren't a surprise find; eight of them had been recently released in the park as part of a conservation project.
So far no mind-boggling discoveries were made during BioBlitz, but some species that weren't known to live in the park were spotted. Two of the previously unreported species were moss piglets.
New York's insanely rainy non-spring has evidently created the perfect conditions to support packs of the piglets, and scientists expect that more will be identified as the BioBlitz final tallies come in. There are at least 800 known species of tardigrades, which scientist Alfred Kaestner described in 1969 as "strange miniaturized water animals."
New York is a particularly apt environment for tardigrades. They specialize in living in extreme and inhospitable conditions.
Take away their water and they lower their metabolism to death-like levels, curl into a wee little bundle called a tun and settle in to wait until conditions improve.
"They're like instant coffee," Shapiro explained. "Dry 'em out for months, then just add a drop of water and they come right back to life."
According to Cal Snyder, a biodiversity specialist at the American Museum of Natural History, there may be stranger things than reanimating moss piglets living in the park.
"A 24-hour tally is just a tiny snapshot of whatever happened to be here at the moment," Snyder said. "No doubt there are a lot of other weird little creatures left to be discovered."
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