Ask an Aquanaut: Sponges
Richard Vinson asks: Do you ever find sponges boring?
Well Richard, there are actually two ways to answer that question. Although sponges are not the most dynamic or charasmatic of creatures, for scientists they are rarely boring. In fact, scientists working at Aquarius have discovered that each day large barrel sponges can pump and filter an amount of water equivalent to that in an olympic sized swimming pool – that’s a lot of water and means they must play a very important role in influencing the water chemistry on a reef. Many sponges also have chemical means of defense, since they cannot swim away from predators and scientists are studying these chemicals for use in human medicine. So really, sponges are quite interesting.
We do however find boring sponges…that is, sponges that bore into the framework of a reef – some even secrete acid as a way to facilitate boring!
Dr. Ellen Prager
Chief Scientist, Aquarius Reef Base
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