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Rotifers are small, mostly freshwater animals, and are amongst the smallest members of the Metazoa -- that group of multicellular animals which includes humans, and whose bodies are organized into systems of organs.delloid rotifers are the commonest variety found in fresh water. The term describes their habit of moving about by extending the body and attatching the head, then catching up with the foot and again extending the body -- bdelloid, like a leech.
About 25 species are colonial (e.g., Sinantherina semibullata), either sessile or planktonic. Rotifers are an important part of the freshwater zooplankton, being a major foodsource and with many species also contributing to the decomposition of soil organic matter.Most species of the rotifers are cosmopolitan, but there are also some endemic species, like Cephalodella vittata to Lake Baikal.Recent barcoding evidence, however, suggests that some 'cosmopolitan' species, such as Brachionus plicatilis, B. calyciflorus, Lecane bulla, among others, are actually species complexes.ev. John Harris first described the rotifers (in particular a bdelloid rotifer) in 1696 as an animal like a large maggot which could contract itself into a spherical figure and then stretch itself out again; the end of its tail appeared with a forceps like that of an earwig .