Sporadic Ramblings and Nerdery

It's Wednesday. You know what that means. #CAINAISSANCE2026 update for all DC Comics featuring a Cass appearance! Cass appears in one comic this week:

Batgirl #21

I think the answer to both might be rotifers. I wish they were at least like an inch long so everyone would know about them and I could keep them like a shrimp tank.

It is believed that parasitic thorny headed worms are highly evolved rotifers

In person you can always see their jaws working deep in their "throat" and their one pogo stick leg is all stretchy and silly:

They have exactly the same "immortal" hibernation mode as tardigrades but aren't as marketably piggy shaped I guess.

We do believe thorny headed worms are just really evolved rotifers and they grow several inches long but they lost most rotifer features and they're intestinal parasites so you can't keep those as pets in any advisable way.

Arrow worms might also have evolved from rotifers or an immediate common ancestor and they get up to minnow size and are awesome but they're also completely different and live out in the open ocean. Very cool how all these larger "rotifers" changed their ciliated vacuum mouths into different stuff for different lifestyles though

WILLIE MINGUS!!!!!!!!!!!!