Rotifera

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Rotifer, any of a phylum of multicellular, generally microscopic, aquatic animals that are abundant worldwide, and are most frequently found in freshwater bogs, ponds, and puddles. Rotifers vary in shape but always have retractable, hairlike crowns of cilia that, in motion, resemble turning wheels. (Among the first microscopic life forms to be studied, they were commonly known as wheel animalcules.) The animals can attach themselves temporarily to surfaces by means of a cementing secretion from the “foot” of the body. They reproduce sexually, but males are rare; except under severe conditions, the eggs develop parthenogenetically. Rotifers feed on other microorganisms; a few species are parasitic.

Scientific classification: Rotifers make up the phylum Rotifera.

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