Biology
Piece of a Cinctipora elegans colony showing pink colouration in active areas near tips of branches and fouled, discoloured older branches.
Colonies reach up to 30cm high and can contain hundreds of branches and thousands of zooids, unusually large for a modern cyclostome bryozoan.
Actively feeding zooids are typically confined to zones about 1cm back from the branch growing tips. Older zooids further away from the growing tips are dormant.
Growth rates are unknown but it is quite likely that colonies live for a decade or more.
Reproduction
Sexual reproduction in this species is mysterious as, unlike other cyclostome bryozoans, specialized zooids for brooding the larvae have never been found. Nevertheless, the structure of the founding zooids of new colonies is identical to that of other cyclostomes, suggesting that they were formed by the settlement a free-swimming larva produced by sexual reproduction.
Asexual propagation can occur through regrowth from branches broken from adult colonies.