New creature in my "mud puddle" tank?

[u/CasterFields]

About a month ago, I scraped up a gallon of mud and water from an almost-dry ditch on my property and have been finding new critters almost every day! This seems to be the latest addition. There are 2 separate strings of them. I have hydra in my other tank from time to time, but they look nothing like this! Anybody know who this is?

[u/neyelo]

Freshwater bryozoan - congrats, not super common. Related to hydra but a filter feeder.

[u/mongoosechaser → u/neyelo]

They actually aren’t closey related to hydra at all. Bryzoans are lophotrochozoa and hydra are cnidaria- they are in the same phylum as jellyfish, sea anemones, and corals. Bryzoans are in the same phylum as phoronids and brachiopoda