A new study has upended the assumption that the sponges are immovable. The study has pushed and prodded the scientific thought into a new direction.
Context
A new study has upended the assumption that the sponges are immovable. The study has pushed and prodded the scientific thought into a new direction.
About the key findings
- Species: The main species in the region were identified as Geodia parva, G. hentscheli, and Stelletta rhaphidiophora.
- Finding: The study found the sea sponges were appeared to be crawling uphill and even on top of each other.
- The study found that sea sponges made limited movements by expanding and contracting their bodies in a laboratory setting.
- It is found for the first time that sea sponges drifted and rolled across the seafloor in the northeast Pacific Ocean.
- The larvae of the sea sponge are known to be mobile and the adults have generally been believed to be sessile, or immobile.
- They lack muscles or other specialized organs that would help them get around.
- Reason: No exact reason for their movement has been given yet.
- The researchers hypothesize that the sponges are moving to find food or to disperse juveniles.
- Significance: The study has opened the new vistas of study towards this phylum.
Sea Sponges,
- These are the members of the phylum Porifera.
- They are Diplobastic means their germ layer is divided in two layers that is ectoderm and endoderm.
- They are multicellular organisms.
- There bodies are full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through them.
- Sponges do not have nervous, digestive or circulatory systems.
- They rely on maintaining a constant water flow through their bodies to obtain food and oxygen and to remove wastes.
- All sponges are sessile aquatic animals, which means that they attach to an underwater surface and remain fixed in place.
- Many sponges have internal skeletons of spongin and/or spicules made up of calcium carbonate or silicon dioxide.
- The study of sponges is known as spongiology.
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