Killer Sponges

Man, I remember studying sea sponges in invertebrate biology. They were boring as hell! They’re super-simple colonial animals that are little more than single-cell animals that form complex structures. Under a microscope they look like a pile of dirty fiberglass!

Still sponges like THESE would have made the unit a little more interesting:

Most sponges filter particles of food from water by moving water through their bodies using tiny hairs known as choanocytes, but a few look for larger prey, explained MBARI marine biologist Lonny Lundsten.

“To keep beating the whip-like tails of the choanocytes takes a lot of energy. And food is hard to come by in the deep sea. So these sponges trap larger, more nutrient-dense organisms, like crustaceans, using beautiful and intricate microscopic hooks,” he said.

There are seven species of carnivorous sponge in the northern Pacific that we know about, but now four new types have been described – and some of them could have been around since the time of the dinosaurs.

Watch the video to see them putting the hurt to some arthropods. Still a little dull compared to more advanced animals, but on the sponge scale of excitement, these guys are friggin’ action heroes!

H/T C-90

This entry was posted in Biology. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to Killer Sponges

  1. Steve says:

    Bath time will never be the same.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *