APROCEAN

 

tardibabe

This Batman look alike Rotifer makes me smile so much! Beside being able to freaking teleport, it launches itself like a space rocket 🚀 how cool is that?

The way it jumps/teleports makes it pretty hard to follow around so I hope you excuse my poor microscope movements 😂

Rotifers are an extremely diverse group and littoral ones developed many different locomotion strategies as a way to adapt to their environment. Some are permanently attached to the substrate and others can swim or even crawl like worms! The ciliated corona is used to attract food particles to the mouth by generating a water current but can also be used for locomotion. The adhesive foot can be used to attach reversibly the animal to plants, rocks or other surfaces.

In the case of this Polyarthra, which is a planktonic rotifer, the adhesive foot is absent but it possess movable appendages to swim and jump around! Movable appendages are pretty rare in littoral rotifers but enable, for those who possess them, to make rapid skipping movements which is super practical to avoid predators and also makes them pretty difficult to swallow!

Epic beat by @some_where_good ✨

Reference:

Allen, A. A. (1968). Morphology of the planktonic rotifer Polyarthra vulgaris. Transactions of the American Microscopical Society, 60-69.

Video taken with my iPhone mounted on my BA310E Motic microscope with an @ilabcam adapter 🔬