What do you think of this picture? These "mushrooms" are spikes around a statoblast of Pectinatella magnifica, a kind of freshwater Bryozoan. Please look at the next photograph.
<-- Eyes? (The spikes look like lashes!)
I've known about these spiked statoblasts from photographs on the Web and in books. But I'd never seen real ones until Isamu Harada gave me some. He collected a colony (and its statoblasts) in a pond in Yashiro (in Hyougo prefecture, in western Japan near Kobe).
These statoblsts are larger than those of Plumatella sp., which is the only other Bryozoan species I've observed.
The spikes are very impressive, and identified it as Pectinatella magnifica.
The center dark part ("fenestra") of each statoblast contains its next generation. According to others, that part's diameter tends to be smaller, and the ring around it ("annulus") larger, on the dorsal side of each statoblast.
Now I'm observing these statoblasts in an aquarium tank. It looks difficult to grow them up to large colonies, but I hope to see some zooids with lophophores.
There are photos of the colony of this species in the above Web sites. I hope to see a real colony myself, someday!
Dick Miller helped me very much to improve the English text. I wish to thank him.