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Concept
Rotifer
Summary
The rotifers (ˈroʊtᵻfərz, from the Latin rota, "wheel", and -fer, "bearing"), commonly called wheel animals or wheel animalcules, make up a phylum (Rotifera roʊ'tIfər@) of microscopic and near-microscopic pseudocoelomate animals.
They were first described by Rev. John Harris in 1696, and other forms were described by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1703. Most rotifers are around long (although their size can range from to over ), and are common in freshwater environments throughout the world with a few saltwater species.
Some rotifers are free swimming and truly planktonic, others move by inchworming along a substrate, and some are sessile, living inside tubes or gelatinous holdfasts that are attached to a substrate. About 25 species are colonial (e.g., Sinantherina semibullata), either sessile or planktonic. Rotifers are an important part of the freshwater zooplankton, being a major foodsource and with many species also contributing to the decomposition of soil organic matter. Most species of the rotifers are cosmopolitan, but there are also some endemic species, like Cephalodella vittata to Lake Baikal. Recent barcoding evidence, however, suggests that some 'cosmopolitan' species, such as Brachionus plicatilis, B. calyciflorus, Lecane bulla, among others, are actually species complexes. In some recent treatments, rotifers are placed with acanthocephalans in a larger clade called Syndermata.
In June 2021, biologists reported the restoration of bdelloid rotifers after being frozen for 24,000 years in the Siberian permafrost. Early purported fossils of rotifers have been suggested in Devonian and Permian fossil beds.
List of bilaterial animal orders
Rev. John Harris first described the rotifers (in particular a bdelloid rotifer) in 1696 as "an animal like a large maggot which could contract itself into a spherical figure and then stretch itself out again; the end of its tail appeared with a forceps like that of an earwig". In 1702, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek gave a detailed description of Rotifer vulgaris and subsequently described Melicerta ringens and other species.
Official source
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