Subject: Re: gastrotrichs
Date: Feb 6 15:41:01 1995
From: Dennis Paulson - dpaulson at ups.edu


>On Mon, 6 Feb 1995, Dennis Paulson wrote:
>
>> And I even got a lifer, in fact a life *phylum*--a gastrorich that I found
>>in water from my pond.
>
>I'll bite -- what is a gastrorich?
>
>Dale Goble

I guess I gotta be more careful about my spelling. If I hadn't made the
typographical error, you would all have known what I was talking about.
It's a *gastrotrich* (means "hairy belly"), and it's a microscopic
multicellular animal. The common freshwater types are tiny, only about
1,000 microns long, and could serve as food for the largest protozoans
(unicellular animals). They are about the size of and not distantly
related to rotifers ("wheel animalcules") that some of you may have seen in
beginning biology. They look like tiny slugs with hairs ("cute" is the
only word) and crawl about on algal filaments and detritus. Looking under
a compound microscope at pond water is another of the excursions into the
entirely new worlds that we forget are all around us, like a first look
underwater at a coral reef. I recommend it if you have (a) a pond and (b)
a microscope.

No birds seen yet, but I'm searching for an undescribed microgrebe that
remains under water except for its strawlike bill and thus has been
overlooked by birders. I think it'll be included in Volume 3 of "Little
Known and Seldom Seen Birds of North America."

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416