This beautifully geometric piece of natural architecture is produced by the animal commonly called the sea-mat and scientifically known as a bryozoan (which means 'moss-animal'). This particular species is Membranipora membranacea and I picked it up yesterday, in a rock-pool on the seashore at Seaburn, near Sunderland.
Membranipora forms extensive, fast-growing colonies resembling a lacy mat, that spread over the surface of kelp fronds. It's common on all coasts around Britain and has been introduced into shallow seas in other parts of the world where there is some concern that its rapid rate of growth could suppress the reproduction of some marine algae.
Each calcareous compartment, secreted by the animal inside, contains an individual animal (zooid) that extends a feeding arm called a lophophore, for filtering out plankton.
The zooids retract into a tube within their walled enclosure at the slighest hint of danger but when they're all extended they resemble a garden of transparent flowers, gently waving their arms..
Each walled enclosure has a small tower at the junction with its neighbours' walls and ......
....there are often gaps in the walls, which give the colony a degree of flexibility as the supporting kelp frond bends in the sea currents. The gaps tend to be most conspicuous in older sections of the colony.
There are at least two kinds of zooid - the flower-shaped feeding lophophores and these translucent cylindrical forms.
I'm not sure what their function is but my guess is that they provide additional surface area for oxygen uptake or maybe waste disposal.
You can find out more about bryozoans here or take a look for yourself - these are low-power micrographs (maximum magnification x50) but you can see the living zooids with a hand lens if you put a piece of the colony in a shallow dish of seawater. You can find them all year-round and fine specimens are often attached to kelps that are washed up on beaches after storms.
