I am Aydin Örstan, an independent student of land snails and bdelloid rotifers. What do snails and bdelloids have in common? For one thing, they can both become dormant in the absence of water and survive a long time. I am a research associate of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, but I do my work in the basement of my house in Maryland. My current projects involve the distributions of the land snails of western Turkey and the bdelloid rotifers that live in phytotelmata and running waters. And, yes, I like chocolate ice cream.