Catherine the Great, Hagar the Horrible, Andre the Giant, Ming the Merciless, Ivan the Terrible and Pliny the Elder all have evocative names that describe a quality or character for which these individuals were known. In some case, they were self-described and in others, bestowed. 

Add Pectinatella the Magnificent to this esteemed list of noted individuals, though it would be not quite correct to call this thing an individual. Pectinatella magnifica — or magnificent bryozoan — is a colonial animal made up of many individuals that live and work together. 

The superlative was conferred to the bryozoan by a nineteenth-century naturalist from Philadelphia. Joseph Leidy was described by the National Academy of Sciences as a man who “will endure both as the founder of vertebrate palaeontology in America and as the last great naturalist of the old, or eighteenth and early nineteenth century type...His encyclopaedic knowledge, broad grasp of the whole field of natural history, precision and originality of observation in every field, present a combination of endowments that will never reappear in a single individual.”  

Or maybe those endowments did reappear in this collection of creatures. Bryozoan are also confusingly called moss animals though they have no plant component at all. Pectinatella’s translucent, jelly-like body is made up of many single animals called zooids. The conglomeration of zooids is bound together and can be as big as your head or found in smaller bits. This bryozoan package is covered with star-like designs and can live attached or free-floating in freshwater. 

The gelatinous blob lacks a mouth but definitely eats well. Instead, each zooid has a lophophone, or feeding organ, that consists of a ring of tentacles that can bring in and filter food out of its watery home. One zooid can filter just under two teaspoons per day and consumes phytoplankton, diatoms and other microscopic organisms. 

Nancy Weaver and Eric Larsen recently found this creature in Priester’s Pond. Though they were excited about the discovery, it wasn’t the first appearance of the magnificent bryozoan. We have seen this species periodically. It was first reported in Massachusetts in 1866 and documented on the Vineyard in Chilmark in 1999, at the herring run in the upper Lagoon in 2003, and in 2004 in Wiggy’s (Fresh Pond). 

And now, with this sighting, it is back. It isn’t that the magnificent bryozoan ever left; parts of it quietly and subtly remained.  Conditions must be just right for the magnificent one to make itself known.  

Pectinatella likes eutrophic or nutrient-enriched conditions and it also prefers warm waters. When temperatures drop or conditions are not just right, Pectinatella will dissolve and die. But it isn’t gone forever, and can reappear when circumstances improve. 

 The life cycle of the magnificent bryozoan is how it accomplishes the here today, gone tomorrow, and back another day lifestyle. The organism is a study in adaptation. It can reproduce three ways: sexually with egg and sperm, asexually by budding (breaking off a part that will become its own organism), or with the assistance of statoblasts that function like seeds and can create new colonies. With those statoblasts, pectinatella can lie dormant, waiting for the perfect conditions to return. 

With climate change, that might be sooner and more often. And more magnificence might not be a good thing. Other communities have had trouble with this species clogging water systems, pipes and fishing nets. Only time will tell if pectinatella magnifica might bloom and turn into Pectinatella the Peculiar Pest.

Suzan Bellincampi is islands director for Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown and the Nantucket Wildlife Sanctuaries. She is also the author of Martha’s Vineyard: A Field Guide to Island Nature and The Nature of Martha’s Vineyard.