Sponges are prevalent on Caribbean reefs and live in symbiosis with many creatures. While we often think of creatures as either unicellular or multicellular, sponges seem to fall somewhere in a grey zone between the two lifestyles. Sponges seem to be what happens when unicellular creatures evolve the ability to stick to each other: they function as a unit, but their aggregation is more or less non-specialized and reversible. Stranger yet, if you take a sponge apart, cell by cell, by straining it through a sieve the cells can reassemble themselves into a new sponge (video here). Let me be frank here, they don’t even have a mouth or an anus. They have no organs, no respiratory, digestive, or nervous systems. Their cells, while organized are not structured into tissues. Their bodies are asymmetrical and amorphous. While they are technically animals, they lack many of the fundamental features that distinguish animals from other lifeforms. Sponges are my latest creature obsession. Scopalina ruetzleri photographed in Bonaire
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