Today, there are a number of species that are said to have a cosmopolitan distribution due to their world wide occurrence (based on registrations). But in many cases this is probably due to cryptic species: organisms that are very similar, but still different species.
There is a bryozoan in the genus Microporella that most likely fits this description, namely Microporella ciliata. As the map shows, this species has been recorded in almost every part of the world, though new studies show that this is probably due to misidentifications and that there are most likely more than one species in this complex.
Since the original type material for Microporella ciliata has been lost, Kuklinski & Taylor redescribed the species in 2008 and used material from the Mediterranean as the neotype. Compared to the Microporella ciliata described in British literature, there are definitely some morphological differences between the two.
What about the Microporella we collected? The problem is that this Microporella mystery has only just begun to be unravelled. You have to compare populations from several localities and use both morphological characters and DNA to possibly distinguish cryptic species, and that is easier said than done! So our "Microporella ciliata" will for the time being remain as Microporella sp.
