Bryozoa
Amathia distans
(Delicate Sheep's-Wool Bryozoan)
Size
Colony height: reaching 3-5cm (1-2") tall
Recognition Characters
This bryozoan forms soft, bushy colonies. The zoarium is dichotomously branching. The flexible stolons are usually coated with silt and diatoms which gives the colonies the muddy brown color. The colonies consist of short, erect zooids arranged biserially in a spiral around each stolon segment. Zooecia are about 0.4mm in height, closely connate to the tips in some specimens, or may be free at the tips and connate only at the base. Stolons frequently terminate in 2 long, barren internodes which sometimes give off one or two isolated zooecia.
Color
Brown to tannish brown, or white
Habitat & Depth
Primarily as fouling organism in shallow water on hard substrates (pilings, hulls, coral rubble, etc.) in harbors and embayments. Occasionally found on the reef in more protected areas.
Distribution at GRNMS
Common. Attached to rocks and rocky rubble.
Geographic Range
Beaufort, North Carolina south to Brazil, Gulf of Mexico, invasive to Hawaii
Behavior & Notes
Synonyms
Maturo 1957