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The term sponge derives from the Ancient Greek word σπόγγος spóngos. [9] The scientific name Porifera is a neuter plural of the Modern Latin term porifer, which comes from the roots porus meaning "pore, opening", and -fer meaning "bearing or carrying".
As members of the oldest phylum of metazoans, Suberites serve as model organisms to elucidate features of the earliest animals. [2] [3] [4] Suberites and their relatives are used to determine the structure of the first metazoans [2] and have been studied to determine how totipotency has replaced by pluripotency in most higher animals. [5]
Demosponges (Demospongiae) are the most diverse class in the phylum Porifera. They include greater than 90% of all species of sponges with nearly 8,800 species worldwide (World Porifera Database). [5] They are sponges with a soft body that covers a hard, often massive skeleton made of calcium carbonate, either aragonite or calcite [citation ...
All sponges in this class are strictly marine, and, while they are distributed worldwide, most are found in shallow tropical waters. Like nearly all other sponges, they are sedentary filter feeders. All three sponge body plans (asconoid, syconoid, and leuconoid) can be found within the class Calcarea. Typically, calcareous sponges are small ...
They are found in all oceans of the world, although they are particularly common in Antarctic and Northern Pacific waters. [ 3 ] They are more-or-less cup-shaped animals, ranging from 10 to 30 centimetres (3.9 to 11.8 in) in height, with sturdy skeletons made of glass -like silica spicules , fused to form a lattice.
Siliceous sponges are usually found in the marine ecosystem but they are occasionally found in freshwater. During the Triassic, siliceous sponges grew reefs similar to calcarea of the modern era. During the Cretaceous period, diatoms became so successful that they significantly decreased the amount of silica present in sea water, after which ...
The algae help facilitate oxygen and food uptake for the sponge, while the sponge provides the algae a surface to live on. The gemmules of Spongilla lacustris inside the original parent sponge. The texture of the sponge itself is soft. The ostia (dermal pores) let water into the sponge to be filtered. The oscula is the hole from which water exits.
Homoscleromorpha are exclusively marine sponges that tend to encrust on other surfaces at shallow depths. These sponges typically inhabit shady locations, under overhangs and inside caves. In the Mediterranean Sea, 82% of the species in this taxon can be found in caves, and 41% of them are found nowhere else. [10]