![\"This](\"http:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/vms\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/139\/2015\/11\/jamesgertleyrotifer.gif\")
<\/a>This animation was created to show the way rotifers move, as well as display the struggles of drawing a live organism.<\/p><\/div>\n
Rotifers are zooplankton that inhabit a variety freshwater habitats, both stationary and flowing, as well as many other things such as moist soil, mosses, gutters, sewers, and many more. They have a small brain and up to five eyes, and their name comes from the Latin word for \u2018wheel-bearer\u2019 because of the cilia around the crown-like mouth of the organism. They use these cilia both to pull themselves through the water and move food into their mouth, as they also have a complete digestive system with a mouth and anus. They eat things like detritus, and aid in nutrient recycling, making them useful to keep fish tanks clear. On the other side of things, they are eaten by creatures such as copepods, fish, jellyfish, and starfish.<\/p>\n
<\/a>500 \u00b5m long and 150 \u00b5m wide<\/p><\/div>\n
While some rotifers reproduce sexually, bdelloidea reproduce completely asexually. They\u2019re all females, and expand the population by producing eggs that don\u2019t need to be fertilized. Typically, this makes it difficult to be evolutionarily successful, since all offspring simply have an exact copy of that parent\u2019s genes, making the only genetic variation come from mutations, or accidental alteration of the genome. Unfortunately, more often than not a mutation is the opposite of helpful to the species. This makes it nearly impossible for the organism to evolve and adapt to changes in it\u2019s environment. However, scientists noted that bdelloidea seem to occasionally gain a new gene. They seem to be\u00a0somehow taking genes from the environment and incorporating them into their own genome. I find this fascinating, and one moral idea I could see being taken from this is that there\u2019s always a solution. It might not be obvious but you should never give up, because there will always be something that you can do, just like the bdelloidea taking genes from the environment.<\/p>\n