Scientists Find Bizarre Brain-Like Blob In Vancouver's Lost Lagoon

  • 7 years ago
Some of the participants in a recent event at Vancouver’s Stanley Park spent their day pulling 'dragon boogers' out of a pond.

Last month, scientists, both expert and citizen, descended upon Vancouver’s Stanley Park to see what sort of fascinating wildlife they could find.
Some of those involved in the event, called Bio Blitz in the Park, even spent their day pulling a 'dragon booger' out of a lake called the Lost Lagoon.
More formally known as type of bryozoan, the bumpy-looking blob is, according to Maria Egerton, the park’s conservation programs manager, actually, “colonies made of thousands of genetically identical individuals.” 
The Stanley Park Ecology Society notes, “The original member reproduces asexually, through budding, to create an entire colony of clones. As a colony forms, they produce a protein which creates the slimy gelatinous structure that the individual zooids attach to and live on.”
The discovery of the gooey mass was a first for the park and has been generating quite a buzz. 
News of the find posted to Facebook received well over 33,000 likes, which is high by any standards, but particularly impressive for a creature that’s been likened to both clumps of mucus and old Jello. 

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