Dating back to the Ordovician period about 450 million years ago, Bryozoa are small aquatic invertebrates with exoskeletons that typically sieve food particles out of the water with a crown of tentacles. The individual zooids live in colonies forming fans, bushes, and sheets.
Dennis P. Gordon, distinguished taxonomist at New Zealand’s National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, has described “New Hippothoidae (Bryozoa) from Australasia” in the journal Zootaxa.
Dennis and Jesse Ausubel worked together in the Census of Marine Life 2000-2010. Dennis has named a new genus of Hippothoidae Bryozoans the Jessethoa and the first species Jessethoa ausubeli.
This brings the total of described hippothoid genera to nine (plus two fossil) and species to 83 recent (plus 15 fossil).
The Jessethoa page in the World Registry of Marine Species
The Jessethoa ausubeli page in the World Registry of Marine Species
On behalf of the entire Census of Marine Life, Jesse is greatly honored to be permanently associated with this fascinating taxon. Thank, Dennis Gordon!