Sea Sponge Facts

How many of you really know that the scrub you are using in the kitchen is actually an animal species? Or the one that you have been cleaning your car with is nothing but natural sponges found in deep sea? Sea sponges are one of the oldest living organisms in the earth, inhabiting the planet for last 500 million years. Sea sponges are among the simplest multicellular organisms and mostly look like plants. They also have chlorophyll content like most plants, but in actual they are zoophytes. Unlike other animals, sea sponges don’t have a distinct nervous, digestive and circulatory systems. They don’t go for hunting like other animals; instead they remain fixed to their place and allow water to flow through them. They have specialized cells which absorbs the oxygen and other food particles from water. What’s more, sea sponges are hermaphrodites, which mean that they are both male and female. Sea sponges are basically of two types, encrusting and free floating. Encrusting ones are similar to the mosses attached to rocks on earth, while free floating ones are more diverse. They have greater inner volume than their outer surface area and grow to various shapes and sizes. If you covet learning some more interesting facts about sea sponge, read through the following lines.

 

Intrigued by these marvelous facts about the sea sponges! Next time you go underwater and spot the sea sponges, find out which of them are males and which are females?