In the late 1600s, Dutch cloth merchant and self-taught scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek made groundbreaking discoveries using his handcrafted microscopes. He became the first person to observe microscopic organisms he affectionately called "animalcules." Most fascinating among these were rotifers—tiny aquatic animals with wheel-like feeding appendages—which he began studying extensively in 1687. Unlike other microorganisms that disintegrated when dried out, van Leeuwenhoek observed that rotife