Sinantherina socialis are freshwater Rotifers (microscopic multicellular animals) that form colonies. Eggs can be found throughout the colony. In this video, eggs showed increased activity and appeared close to hatching.

Less than 10 minutes later, a baby Rotifer hatches and immediately seeks out its siblings which had hatched moments earlier. Almost immediately, the newborns attempt to connect with each other with their feet. Within 5 minutes of hatching they successfully form a colony.

A second colony of newborns, about 1mm away from the first, loses the structure of its new colony but quickly reforms. These two colonies remain motile for the remainder of my observation. I do not know when they will attach to a strand of algae or plant matter in the sample, but all of the full grown colonies I’ve seen are sessile (fixed in one place).

Every adult colony in the sample had a good number of eggs present in the colony. I’m uncertain as to how long it takes for an egg to hatch after fertilization, it seems lucky that I happened upon these eggs at the moment of birth.