Trembling sea mat

Victorella pavida
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Bryozoa
Class:	Gymnolaemata
Order:	Ctenostomatida
Family:	Victorellidae
Genus:	Victorella
Species:	V. pavida
Binomial name
Victorella pavida Saville Kent, 1870

Victorella pavida or trembling sea mat is a species of bryozoans found in shallow waters of low or fluctuating salinity, such as lagoons and estuaries. In summer (the growing season) it can have the appearance of velvet. The zooids may be from 0.3 mm to 1 mm in length. They live in colonies underwater attaching to stones. They feed using tiny hairs attached to their crown of tentacles to catch tiny particles flowing through the water, also known as "filter feeding".

It is common in the Mediterranean Sea, and has also been reported in the North Sea (on the European Mainland), the Baltic, the Black Sea, India, Japan, Brazil, and the eastern United States.Swanpool, a coastal saline lagoon (Brackish Lake), in Falmouth, is the only location in the British Isles at which Victorella pavida is found; it is protected under Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

Wm. S. Kent Memoirs: On a New Polyzoon, "Victorella Pavida," from the Victoria Docks, Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, s2-10: 34-39. The paper in which Saville-Kent first described the species.

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