Like Little Escape Artists, Rotifers Elude Their Enemies by Drying Up and - Poof! - They Are Gone with the Wind
Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 16:07
in Astronomy & Space
They haven't had sex in some 30 million years, but some very small invertebrates named bdelloid rotifers are still shocking biologists - they should have gone extinct long ago. Cornell researchers have discovered the secret to their evolutionary longevity: these rotifers are microscopic escape artists. When facing pathogens, they dry up and are promptly gone with the wind.