[Taxacom] Rotifer World Catalog online

[Bob Mesibov]

Congratulations to Christian and Martin for their hard work in putting this together, it looks great. It's especially cheering to read this on the website:

"The Catalog relies predominantly on verified (expert validation) and verifiable (via referencing) species records. Doubtful records and misidentifications are corrected, or, if uncontrollable, discarded to unburden rotiferology of records which currently hamper taxonomic analyses and obscure distribution and habitat preference patterns."

I confess to a fondness for rotifers. Forty years ago I did a biochemistry postdoc in which I tried to mass-rear a particular parthenogenetic species in vats as food for minute predatory fish. It worked until a huge spiny amoeba species invaded the test vat and ate the rotifers. Before that happened I got mass doubling times for the rotifers of just under 24 hours - not bad for a metazoan.
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
School of Agricultural Science, University of Tasmania
Home contact:
PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
(03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195