What Critter is That

July 29th, 2018
 I got a sample of water and some freshwater snails from one of Central Park’s ponds in New York.

These are Campeloma snails.

 They are different from pond snails that I keep in all my aquariums.

At first, I did not pay attention to the sticks that were attached to snails.
Then I notice that the "sticks" are moving!

What kind of critters are they?

 They live in freshwater.
 They came along with snails...or rather on the shells of snails covered with algae.
 Also, I picked some aquatic plants from the same pond.

I took it all home for further observation.

Here is the first close up view on one of the critters.

It looks like it has at least two antennas/ arms/ legs of some sort.
 The whole body is hidden inside of what appears to be a stick.
Interestingly, all critters have "sticks" of similar shapes.
Does it mean they build them?

 Critters are indifferent to frozen algae I give them.

 I added some fresh algae, though I am not sure if they eat it.

 For good measure, I add some snails.

Here is the closest view that I can get of the critter so far.

Here you can see hmm...a retractable leg or...is it a mouth with a suction cup?
 It could be a combination of both.
Whatever this part is, it is very flexible and looks like an elephant's trunk.
 The small critter running around of the "stick" is a seed shrimp.

The "sticks" seem to go around busy picking up dirt most of the time.

While most of the "sticks" are busy picking dirt, these three are ... having a tug of war.

 The winner takes it all and...wow!

I don't know what that move is supposed to mean!

Looks like these two are going in for the second round of tug of war.

The critters seems to have some similarities with Caddisfly larvae, but I am not certain about it.

Please, let me know if you can identify them.
Have fun and happy bug searching ;)