UNITY, Maine (AP) — A team of researchers from Unity College has discovered a new species of tardigrade, a microscopic organism known for its ability to survive extreme conditions.

The Portland Press Herald reports (http://bit.ly/1Wv81JF ) university environmentalists found the existence of Echiniscoides Wyethi on barnacles collected from Allen Island, a 450-acre stretch off the coast of Knox County that is owned by the family of artist Andrew Wyeth.

Dr. Emma Perry, a professor of marine biology at the college’s Center for Biodiversity, named the micro-animal after the Wyeth family.

Perry said the eight-legged invertebrates look like a gummy bear under a microscope, but they measure on average just 0.039 of an inch.

Perry documented her team’s May 2014 discovery in a paper published in The Biological Society of Washington.