These spicule trails were visible in about 70% of the images taken of the sea sponges, according to a paper recently published in Current Biology. It looked as if the sea sponges were moving. Underwater imagery showed trails of spicules – structural, skeleton-like spikes that sponges can shed – meandering along the seafloor. hentscheli, and Stelletta rhaphidiophora.īut the abundance of sponges wasn’t the biggest surprise. The main species in the region were identified as Geodia parva, G.
The area was covered in large sea sponges, despite having lower productivity and nutrient fluxes than other sea sponge grounds in the North Atlantic Ocean. In 2016, a team of scientists aboard the RV Polarstern, a German research icebreaker, visited Langseth Ridge, an ice-covered seamount in the Arctic Ocean, a few hundred miles from the North Pole. But a new study has upended this assumption, and pushed and prodded scientific thought into a new direction. At least, that’s what a lot of people used to think about these aquatic invertebrates. Image: AWI OFOBS Team, PS101/Morganti et al
Figure showing typical sponge spicule trails.
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