Check out this article from Fort Worth, Texas that describes a strange organism that has recently showed up:

“They look like dirty jellyfish, but you can’t pop them because they’re not filled with air, according to experts. They’re not even fish. They’re actually millions of tiny organisms called “zooids” that have clumped together forming a slimy mass known as bryozoa, or “moss animals.” Each zooid has a tiny tentacle to feed on microscopic particles in the water.

“These unusual blobs may range in size from a softball to a basketball and are actually freshwater invertebrates,” said Dr. Billy Higgenbotham, of the Texas A & M Agricultural Research and Extension Center said in an online press release. “The colony exudes a protective gelatinous material that makes it resemble a big ball of jelly; some describe it as a floating brain.”

How would you classify these organisms?

Here is a link to a video about the blobs. At the end, the reported says that the blobs are good for the lake because they clean the lake. Does this make is a producer, consumer, or decomposer? How do you know?

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video.jsp?contentId=4341887&version=1&locale=EN-US

Original Link

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=A1A1C9C2DBB26893533080221B44EA8D?contentId=4340051&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1