Magnificent Bryozoan (Pectinatella magnifica) on Jul 8, 2013

Originally reported as Solitary Sea Squirt (Ciona savignyl)

Submitter does not have a specimen

Description of specimen

Flat, slimy-looking, brown/green with occasionally very noticeable regular spots. Ranging from basketball to fat cat in size. Rounded on the edges like spreading pancake batter. I poked one with a stick and it had a fairly stiff membrane that gave a little, but I didn't try to break it. I didn't go in for a sniff, but the air was generally foul-smelling when a breeze came through. I blamed it on the Treatment Plant behind me, though. I tried to lift one a little bit with the stick, and it was definitely an entire thing, whatever it was, but I didn't get a good look at the bottom. It wasn't until later, looking around online, that I realized it might be invasive, so I didn't go crazy documenting details. All in all I saw about a dozen of them between the canoe landing and the pedestrian bridge, a space of about thirty feet.

Commentary

Have any of these been seen so far upriver? They look an awful lot like pictures of stranded tunicates online, but seem to all be salt-water species.

Reporter
July 8, 2013, 1:44 p.m.

This is typical of this species. These bryozoans are freshwater and are found in sloughs, ponds and other areas of slow moving water. They form gelatinous blobs in the late summer or whenever water temperatures are fairly warm. Although unrelated to either they are ecologically a lot more like corals than tunicates.

Robyn Draheim
July 2, 2015, 4:12 a.m.