What are the strange slimy blobs attached to my dock or washed up on shore?
Lake residents occasionally find blobs of jelly-like material attached to their dock, reeled in on a hook or washed up on shore in the summer. The strange slimy mass, that may range from clear to green or yellow to dark brown is actually a harmless colony called a bryozoan. The mass may attain the size of a basketball. The colony will not sting. Bryozoans are found in ponds, lakes and slow streams and attach themselves to vegetation or the undersides of logs and docks to avoid strong sunlight. They generally cannot survive in polluted or muddy waters. The colony starts in spring as a single microscopic individual, but grows by budding throughout the summer to attain a larger size by late summer. The ball is made of thousands of individuals that strain tiny plants and animals from the water. Snails, insects and fish may eat them, but predation is not extensive. The bryozoan may harbor insects that provide food for small fish. The colony dies out by late fall, when they are often found a
