NOTES ON THE ROTIFERS OR WHEEL 

 AN1MACUL.E OF BRISBANE. 



By W. R. COLLEDGE. 



Read before the Royal Society of Queensland, May, 28, 1910. 



According to Gosse, " a rotifer is a microscopic animal 

 found in fresh or salt water, which swims by means of 

 ciha on its head, possessing jaws, stomach, and digestive 

 glands, muscles, a well-developed vascular system, and 

 nerve ganglions with fibres passing to the organ of sense." 

 825 species are known, 300 are found in America, double 

 that number in England ; other countries contribute their 

 quota ; even Shackleton caught some in his latest expedi- 

 tion to the Southern Pole. Canada is the only place from 

 which we have no record, probably because no student 

 has searched its waters. 



A little work was done in Queensland in 1887 and 1889 

 by a Naval Officer, Surgeon Gunson Thorpe. Two 

 papers, with a list of 23 species are found contributed by 

 him to the Transactions of the Royal Society of Queensland 

 about that period. Seeing that this branch of science 

 would repay a little study, I have devoted the most of my 

 spare time for the last two or three years, and have been 

 able to increase the number of these interesting creatures 

 known in Queensland to 102 species. 



Those mentioned in Surgeon Thorpe's papers are 

 marked by an asterisk, the rest have all been found in the 

 neighbourhood of Brisbane. 



ORDER I. BDELLOIDA.— Creeping like a leech usually^ 

 but able to swim freely when they choose to do so. 



Family 1. — Philodina citrina.* 

 Rotifer neptunius.* 

 Rotifer vulgaris.* 



