FOSSIL HABROTROCHID ROTIFERS IN DOMINICAN AMBER

Flask-shaped microfossils are reported from bracts of a moss in Eocene-Oligocene amber from the northern Dominican Republic. These microfossils are identical with the thecae of certain living moss-dwelling rotifers in the genus Habrotrocha (Bdelloidea), which have previously been reported as fossils only from Holocene peat. What may be an egg and a rotifer body fossil are associated with these thecae and further support the identification of these fossils with Habrotrocha; the fossils are almost identical to extant H. angusticollis. The parthenogenetic bdelloid rotifers have a longer evolutionary history than was previously thought; habrotrochid rotifers seem to have persisted for 35 million years with very little change in morphology or ecological role.