Coming up next on Jonathan bird’s Blue Word, Jonathan explores the biology of sponges, and you might be surprise at what he finds!
Hi, I’m Jonathan Bird and welcome to my world!
When People think of a sponge, they usually imagine something like this : cleaning sponge for washing the dishes or for washing the car. Cleaning sponges are synthetic these days, but they used to come from the ocean.
Back in the day before we had synthetic sponges for housework ,cleaning sponges did com from the ocean. They were harvested by hard-hat divers walking along the ocean floor in heavy weighted boot with a rake-like tool to pluck the sponges off the bottom .It was a dangerous and difficult job.
Bagfuls of sponges were lifted to the boat above. Immediately, set to work cleaning the sponges.
Then they were hung to air dry. After days or weeks at sea, when the boat was full of sponges,
They were taken to shore, where they were auctioned to the highest bidder.
Finally they were trimmed, sorted and sold to the public. Natural sponges are still harvested in nearly the same way today, but the synthetic sponge has spared the lives of countless ocean sponges!
While an ocean sponge looks something like a weird plant, it’s actually an animal.
In fact, sponges are among the simplest multi-cellular animals on the bottom of the ocean , attached to a surface and never moving because they can’t walk or swim.
Some are quite colorful, while others are drab. They also come in all shapes and sizes.
There are tube sponges, vase sponges , barrel sponges , rope sponges , encrusting sponges and many other types. Sponges live from the frigid waters of the arctic and Antarctic, to the tropics.
On many coral reefs, sponges dominate the sea floor and the drop off. One of the most common sponges on coral reefs is the barrel sponge.