Those who happen to come upon it might think this football-sized gelatinous blob is a sure sign of pollution. A freshwater bryozoan (Pectinatella magnifica) colony is composed of a single microscopic founder and its many clones. Despite its bizarre appearance, the “moss animal” is an indicator of good water quality. Pectinatella magnifica is found in clear lentic (still) waters of streams, lakes, and ponds where each individual in the colony feeds by extending a disk of sticky tentacles, called a lophophore, from within its protective sheath to capture single-celled algae (e.g., diatoms) and other plankton. From now through autumn, these bryozoans are reproducing by means of cell-filled statoblasts, durable little seedlike pods which can survive the harsh conditions of both winter and drought and sometimes be transported by animals, wind, or water currents to new areas. Spring weather and/or rehydration of a dried-up lentic pool stimulates a statoblast to open, the cells contained therein then develop into a zooid that attempts to start a new colony by cloning itself.
