Results of a freshwater bryozoan survey in the Pacific Northwestern United States

This study represents the first known attempt to gather region-wide information on bryozoans in the Pacific Northwestern United States. For four weeks in July and August 1998, we traveled through Oregon and Washington as well as part of adjacent Idaho collecting colonies and sieving shoreline debris for statoblasts. We narcotized live colonies and then preserved them in 70% ethanol. We stored statoblasts, dried, in sealed plastic bags. Many of the species, we encountered are common in eastern North America. Here we report finding Fredericella sultana and Plumatella mukaii in North America for the first time. We did not expect the widespread occurrence of Stephanella hinq , a species well known in western Asia and previously known from only a few populations in New England and Virginia. We also found a species closely resembling Plumatella fungosa , but with unusually large tubercles over all of the floatoblast.