#bryozoa

[amity206]

Poster on bryozoan awareness I made for my marine biology class, figured it might be appreciated here

How to tell them apart hacks: be a plankton and see how it eats you

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Given the proper knowledge of cooking and nautical genetics, it would be possible to grow a row of bryozoan gyoza.

This fact is not well known because, I mean, just try to say it to anyone.

[overdoso]

Briozoários se alimentando. Helgoland, Mar do Norte 🌊

[arthistoryanimalia]

Plate IX Animal Mousse / Animal Moss (Flustra cormata)

from Alfred Moquin-Tandon’s Le monde de la mer (The World of the Sea), 1866 (English ed. 1869)

Via BHL

[Yes, they’re animals! Phylum Bryozoa]

[bestanimal]

Round 1 - Phylum Bryozoa

(sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Bryozoa is a phylum of animals that, like many Cnidarians, live in colonies of cloned zooids that make up a larger organism, though some solitary species exist. They are commonly known as “Moss Animals”. Each individual bryozoan is usually about half a millimetre long. Colonies of bryozoans can take a variety of forms, including mats, fans, bushes, crusts, and balls. All bryozoans are filter feeders, using a crown of tentacles called a lophophore which surrounds a mouth. Most live in tropical saltwater, but some also live in oceanic trenches, polar seas, brackish water, and freshwater. 5,869 living species of bryozoan are known.

In a colony of bryozoans, there are different types of zooids responsible for different functions. All bryozoans will have autozooids (seen in the first image), which are responsible for feeding, excretion, and supplying nutrients to the rest of the colony. Some species have specialist zooids, including hatcheries for fertilized eggs, defense structures, root-like attachment structures, and/or spiny defensive zooids that are used as legs to slowly creep along. Each zooid consists of a cystid, which provides the body wall and produces an exoskeleton, and a polypide, which holds the organs. Each colony grows by asexual budding from a single zooid known as the ancestrula. Most start life as males, later changing to female, though colonies will always contain a balanced ratio of males and females. Although the zooids themselves are microscopic, colonies can range in size from 1 cm to over 1 m (3 ft 3 in).

How do you feel about this phylum?

One or more of my favorite animals is in this phylum

I love one or more of these animals

I like one or more of these animals

I am neutral about all of these animals

I dislike all of these animals

I hate all of these animals

Voting ended onSep 14, 2024

Propaganda under the cut:

Bryozoans are an important part of the food chain, and are preyed on by nudibranchs, fish, sea urchins, pycnogonids, crustaceans, mites, starfish, snails, and insects. Likewise they are also important filter feeders, providing filtering services just like mussels and sponges do.

Fossil bryozoans are known as far back as the early Cambrian, making them one of the youngest phyla in the fossil record. (Though they may have appeared earlier and just not fossilized due to less mineralization in their skeletons.)

The genus Monobryozoon are the only bryozoans that don’t live in colonies. Their name literally means “Alone Moss Animal”. They are very rare, considered almost a mythical animal among scientists. One species has been found 3 times, another species once, and the last species may not even exist, as its one sighting was not confirmed.

Species that can produce defensive zooids only do so in response to a threat. They may produce these new warriors within 48 hours of sensing said threat.

Many bryozoans have symbiotic relationships with animals of other phyla. For example, the bryozoan Alcyonidium nodosum protects the whelk Burnupena papyracea from the predatory Rock Lobster (Jasus lalandii) by forming a strong crust on its shell and producing chemical defenses which deter the lobster.

Members of a bryozoan colony are genetically identical and co-operate with the use of chemical signals. They can respond to the scent of predators or rival colonies as one. Teamwork makes the… weird little ball of guys work.

I like to imagine them talking like the aliens from Toy Story

[animalshowdown]

Phylum Round 1

🦪 MOLLUSCA vs. BRYOZOA 🪸

Mollusca

Bryozoa

Voting ended onJan 28, 2024

Mollusca: Snails, slugs, cephalopods, bivalves, chitons, limpets, and others. This group contains the largest invertebrates, the giant and colossal squids. They are the largest marine phylum, but many members are terrestrial. Although they are incredibly diverse in body shape, all Molluscs generally have a hard "radula" used for eating, a mantle that may secrete a hard shell, and a body mostly composed of dense muscle. These animals can be predators, herbivores, filter feeders, symbiotic, and even parasitic. This phylum exhibits remarkable diversity overall.

Bryozoa: Moss Animals. Small, frequently colonial, and often colorful, Bryozoans are found in both freshwater and marine habitats. Their crown of tentacles are used for filter feeding, similar to Entoprocta. Colonies consist of zooids living within small cup-like supports that fuse together, forming encrusting or branching structures. Individuals may take on different shapes for different roles within the colony, such as the "avicularia", which are bird-beak-shaped zooids used for defense.

[taxonomytournament]

Taxonomy Tournament: Spiralia

Bryozoa. This phylum is made up of tiny aquatic invertibrates that mostly live in sedentary colonies

Rotifer. This phylum is made up of microscopic aquatic animals with a cilliated corona sourrounding the mouth

Which clade of animals is better?

Bryozoa

Rotifer

Show results

Voting ended onMar 15, 2024

[thaumaptilon]

Oh yeah. So uh. About those recursive animals.

Basically the rough idea was that, very distant in Earth's future, the zooids within a bryozoan colony will each become so remarkably specialized that they basically end up turning into cells/organs of one single animal. Zooids for stuff like muscles and circulation and communication would evolve. Each zooid wouldn't individually feed with a lophophore and instead the whole recursive animal would have a mouth, gut, and anus made up of specialized zooids. Stuff like that.

This drawing is months old and was merely concept exploration. I didn't actually know much about bryozoans at the time, let alone how their morphology and colony structure should dictate the design of such a recursive animal. I still don't really know a whole lot. But one day I hope that I do and I can actually make well informed designs for recursive animals.

This little guy in the drawing was specifically supposed to be a "basal" recursive animal, only a half centimeter long or so, which would crawl along the seafloor in search of any detritus to rake up with its rasping apparatus. Said apparatus, plus the numerous spines jutting out its body, being made of "defensive zooids" that are basically just hardened spikes. It would have a rather simple musculature that let it slug its way around. I hadn't thought much about sensory features, though I imagined it being a deep water organism that makes it homes around hydrothermal vents, so eyes weren't much a concern. The last thing is that, immediately behind the body spikes, are numerous "conventional" looking lophophores--but, rather than collecting food, they aid in respiration thanks to the increased surface area they provide. Rather foolishly, I used the horseshoe-shaped lophophores of phylactolaemata, even though this would definitely be a marine species, and moreover one with calcified cystid walls. As for whether this recursive animal would instead descend from gymnolaemata or stenolaemata, or perhaps even something entirely novel, I have no clue at this point. I don't have enough knowledge on bryozoans to make that sort of decision right now.

I hope I can explore the idea of recursive animals a little more at some point. Probably not right now unfortunately. But I've been practicing a lot of self-care recently, maybe eventually I can find the motivation to finish reading my bryozoan textbook and be more confident with this concept