Bryozoan species richness at Kokemushi Paradise totals at least 120 species. Uncertainties in species names are not due to the quality of the fossil bryozoans but rather largely deficiencies in the literature: very few descriptions of recent and fossil bryozoans from Japan region are accompanied by scanning electron micrographs (Dick et al. 2008a), a prerequisite for precise identification. Fossil species described in some important publications (e.g. Sakakura 1935; Kataoka 1961; Hayami 1975) are difficult to evaluate.
Bryozoans encrusting rock
Encrusting bryozoans comprise approximately 93% of species at Kokemushi Paradise, most having sheet-like colonies. The bryozoan fauna is dominated by ascophoran cheilostomes (64%), followed by cyclostomes (20%) and anascan cheilostomes (16%). Most individual genera are represented by only one or two species. However, some speciose genera are present, notably Porella with 8 species and Microporella with 6 species.
A survey of 85 catalogued lithoclasts showed the maximum number of species on an individual clast to be 25, although most of the clasts examined were encrusted by fewer than 9 species (Taylor et al. 2012).
