Thanks so much to Donna Nickel of Teal Lake for sending us the following picture and note:
The last week of September, 2010, I found a rather hard, gelatinous thing floating in the water by our dock. This thing was about four inches long, three inches wide, and about three inches thick. There was a green leaf in it. It looked as though there was brown dirt or sand stuck on the outside. This year, on October 8, we found growths of the same thing clinging to the bottom of our johnboat.
Kristy Maki, the Sawyer County Aquatic Invasive Species Monitor, indicates that this is not a monster after all. Rather it is likely Bryozoa. continue........
Bryozoans are aquatic animals with a name that literally means “moss animals”. Bryozoa are colonies of tiny colonial animals called zoids and appear as gelatinous globs up to the size of a football. Most species are marine animals, however there is one class, Phylactolaemata, that live exclusively in freshwater. They are often attached to submerged surfaces such as tree branches, roots, rocks, pilings, docks, etc. Sometimes, a clump that has broken loose can be found free-floating or washed up near the shoreline. Bryozoans filter water for their food like sponges and feed on small microorganisms. Each zoid in the colony has whorls of delicate feeding tentacles swaying slowly in the water catching food.
Some freshwater varieties are thought to be useful indicators of water quality. It is said that they like water that is eutrophic, which means very productive lakes with lots of food, and are generally indicative of moderate to good water quality.
