The microscopic animal that makes its own bricks

Gosse called it Melicerta. This tube-building rotifer gathers particles, forms pellets, and builds a home one tiny unit at a time.
A builder in a drop of water.
This tiny rotifer makes the pieces of its own home.
The current brings the material.
Beating cilia sweep tiny particles toward its head.
A pellet takes shape.
A small cup near the head gathers and shapes the material.
One more piece of the wall.
The rotifer bends and adds the pellet to its tube.
A home, built pellet by pellet.
The finished tube shelters a living animal almost too small to see.

The microscopic animal that makes its own bricks

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