On The Trails: Bryozoa

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“It’s a great accolade for Milina to be able to play at the next level for sure,” JDHS coach Matt Dusenberry said. “I think it gives our aspiring kids — not only in the program but kids growing up in Juneau — (something) to look up and see that it is attainable and possible…I find that Milina, in practice and in games, does the unexpected at times, and I’m saying that in a positive way in that she is that kid that a ball comes to her feet and she’ll try things that maybe aren’t the conventional way of doing things — the heel flick here or a toe flick here — to just try and catch the other team off guard with her creativity.”Sometime in April, a friend alerted country wise email marketing list me to some odd ball-shaped structures attached to a spruce log in Auke Lake. These are bryozoans, a type of minuscule aquatic animals. They constitute their own phylum, quite distinct from all other animals. There are over 5,000 species of bryozoans, exhibiting a great diversity of form and habit. Most of them live in saltwater, especially in the tropics, but some live in freshwater. Almost all of them are strictly colonial, although the size and shape of the colony varies. Those that we observed in Auke Lake make gelatinous balls, with the tiny animals projecting from the surface of the ball.

The word “Bryozoa” translates as “moss animal.” Some early observer probably thought that a flattish colony looked a bit like a moss.