Animalcules. But now I found that when almost all the water was evaporated, so that the creature could no longer be covered with water, nor move itself as usual, it then contracted itself into an oval figure, and in that state it remained, nor could I perceive that the moisture evaporated from its body, for it preserved its oval and round shape, unhurt."

Leeuwenhoek later continued his work with rotifers to discover that when he returned the dried bodies to their preferred aquatic conditions, they resumed their original shape and began