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