they come in all different colors shapes
and sizes you can have large and small
sponges shaped as vases or baskets or
even large barrel sponges
they can be branching can be round they
can be encrusting they can be massive or
thin so the variability of the body plan
pretty amazing
many of us have used them to bathe or
clean with and the most famous one is
spongebob square pants a cartoon
character who entertains children from
his pineapple in the sea but have you
ever given sponges much thought
500 million years of evolution indicate
that their true survivors in recent
years researchers discovered that
sponges are one of the groups of marine
animals that produced the most bioactive
compounds leading to many medicinal uses
these include the development of drugs
that treat viral infections other
infectious diseases and a variety of
cancers there's over 8,500 species of
sponges that are known to punches are
found in all ocean basins from tropical
to our tech there's a few freshwater
sponges so they're very widespread many
tropical sponges can be found on shallow
reefs to deep reefs sponges are animals
primitive and simple they don't have
true specialized for differentiated
tissue like the heart or brain or liver
they do have differentiated cells
depending on the type of class of sponge
skelton he made other silica or calcium
carbonate so most sponges have a
silica-based skeleton and these are in
the form of what's called the spicules
these spicules determine the consistency
or field goal from very soft to very
broccoli people might learn a little bit
from sponges as to how did they survive
disturbances changing climates who do
you want to go to you run into trouble
well it's a group that's been around for
a long period of time and the sponges
fit that bill what might sponge genomes
tell us about long-term survival what
other secrets might sponges