Brachionus (Rotifera) Movies

Brachionus Video No. 1 - The inner workings of a brachionus rotifer as it digests its food; under phase contrast illumination at a magnification of 600x with a playing time of 20.4 seconds. Choose a playback format that matches your connection speed: 28.8k (modem), 56.6k (modem), or T1/Cable/DSL, or download this video clip in MPEG format (2.25 MB).

These rotifers have a transparent turtle-like shell called a lorica and are found in a variety of habitats, freshwater and marine. Several species are cultured to provide food for fish larvae in aquaculture. Like most rotifers, Brachionus rotifers have pedal glands and extrude a small amount of sticky cement to anchor themselves temporarily on substrate. They also anchor, then spin out a length of filament at the end of which they stay with corona extended to feed.

Rotifers are extremely common and can be found in many freshwater environments and in moist soil, where they inhabit the thin films of water surrounding soil particles. Their habitats may include still water environments, such as lake bottoms, as well as rivers or streams. They are also commonly found on mosses and lichens, in rain gutters and puddles, in soil or leaf litter, on mushrooms growing near dead trees, in tanks of sewage treatment plants, and even on freshwater crustaceans and aquatic insect larvae.