Re: NANFA-- "Brain Coral" Freshwater Bryozoans?

DasArm_at_aol.com
Mon, 12 Jun 2000 00:02:08 EDT

In a message dated 6/11/00 7:12:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
Moontanman_at_aol.com writes:

<< Here they live in an area of a
local lake that is polluted with organics, thick green water, and they live
in basket ball or larger sized colonies attached to pipes, poles, and
concrete. >>

My whatever-they-are's (starting to have some doubts that they are bryozoans)
aren't that big; the largest is the size of a golf ball. There are several
that are golf ball-sized, there are many small ones that look like little
blobs. They don't have the brain coral appearance until they get golf
ball-sized, which is when you can see all of the swirly spiral indentations
which give it the brain coral appearance. I think that the reason why they
haven't got that big is because they live in this vernal pool which dries out
by July generally; they don't get enough time to really grow that big. I
never noticed them before; I just saw the small dime-sized spots of them on
leaves and thought that perhaps they were fungus patches ( the pool is shaded
in many places by trees, hence all the leaves). I thought that it was a
pretty fair assumption that aquatic fungus could thrive in these shady areas
with decaying leaves but when I saw the appearance of the larger specimens I
realized that these things weren't aquatic fungus. I think that the reason
they got so big to begin with is because we got more rain and this temporary
pool is lasting longer.The specimens I retrieved don't look like they're
doing too well either; I don't think I'll mess with them until I figure out
how to keep them in better conditions.

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