Saturday, May 23, 2009

Bryozoan Breakout in Vietnam. Better Get the Proactiv.


For those for you who have read my blog when it took its first steps, we talked about the bryozoans in Denver that clogged up the drains. If you don't know what a bryozoan is, it's a prehistoric animal that is an invertebrate. It reproduces by budding (it puts one in mind of a thing that might come from a "Star Trek'' episode). Well, they're back.
The most recent sightings are being reported at Rung Lake in Tu Trung Commune in the Vinh Tuong district. The first clue of its presence was the mass of dead fish that had sprung up in the lake around the October of 2008. In April, the Binh Minh Cooperative took some fish from the lake with shocking results: All of the fish were dead, weakened before they died, and caught in the net with them were close to two tons of a weird blob-like thing the locals called called "The Strange Creature." The experts, however, knew better than to think that they were monsters, so they knew that they were bryozoans, though I can't really disagree that they were strange.
The even stranger part is, that whenever somebody touched one of the strange creatures, they got itchiness and sore eyes. These creatures were doing nothing for the lake, nor for anybody's complexion. They also discovered that these things were sticking to plants, the bottom of the lake, and other surfaces. Apparently, the fish in lakes might've died after contact with the bryozoans, which explains the sticky mucus that stuck to their gills. Luckily, the bryozoans won't pollute the water and the fish can reproduce. Good news all around.

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