I have seen this before in fossil form in photographs from Australia. It happens to be just about the oldest possible fossil. So here we have a life form we know has been with us for almost 500,000,000 years..
It is even nearby to me. However is do suspect this is far more common than imagined. After all it likes muddy pond water and likely deep as well.
It is neat to see it though in the living form.
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Mystery of the slimy brain-like 'alien blobs' found in a Canadian lagoon that appear to be SPREADING
The jellies were recently spotted for the first time in a park in Vancouver, Canada
The creatures, known as bryozoans, have been around for millions of years
But the species found normally only dwells east of the Mississippi river
Scientists claim that warming global temperatures may have forced the bizarre organisms north of their normal habitat, but they can't be sure
Published: 11:47 BST, 1 September 2017 | Updated: 13:31 BST, 1 September 2017
They might look like props from a low-budget horror film, but these mysterious slimy brain-like blobs are in fact colonies of hundreds of tiny creatures.
The pond-dwelling jellies were recently spotted for the first time in Stanley Park in Vancouver, Canada, when they were exposed by low water levels.
The creatures, known as bryozoans, have been around for hundreds of millions of years, long before the first dinosaurs walked the Earth.
And now, it appears, they are spreading - but scientists are unsure why.
They might look like props from a low-budget horror flick, but these mysterious slimy blobs are actually colonies of hundreds of tiny creatures. The pond-dwelling jellies were recently spotted for the first time in Canada
BRYOZOANS
Bryozoan clumps are actually hundreds of creatures, each a fraction of a millimetre (0.04") long, living together in a slimy mass.
The tiny invertebrates, known as a zooid, are hermaphroditic and spread through clumps of cells on the organism known as statoblasts.
Each statoblast can reproduce asexually if it breaks off from a colony, allowing bryozoan clumps to spread in large numbers in the right conditions.
Fossil records show that ancient bryozoans date back as far as 470 million years, long before the first dinosaurs walked the Earth around 230 million years ago.pecies found in Stanley Park, known as a magnificent bryozoan or Pectinatella magnifica, normally only dwells east of the Mississippi river.
Scientists claim that warming global temperatures may have forced the bizarre organisms north of their normal habitat - but they can't be sure.
Another theory is that they have always been there, but are simply difficult to spot.
Experts recently studied one specimen found in a small body of water in a southern part of the park known as the 'Lost Lagoon.'
'It's kind of like three-day-old Jello — a bit firm but gelatinous,' Kathleen Stormont, from the Stanley Park Ecology Society, told the Vancouver Courier.
Bryozoan clumps are actually hundreds of creatures, each a fraction of a millimetre (0.04") long, living together in a slimy mass.
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