Natural History

[dreamer_easy]

Today's phylum is ROTIFERA, the, er, rotifers. They were discovered by Dutch microscope expert Leeuwenhoek around 200 years ago. (Think of it - they were there the whole time and we had no idea. There's something eerie about that. At least with germs we knew something was going on.) These guys are multicellular, but extremely tiny, the size of single-celled organisms. They have a "wheel" of cilia around their mouths (rota is Latin for wheel) for grabbing food, and a foot with a "toe" used to attach themselves to surfaces. There are about 2000 species, typically found in fresh water.