live photo of sponges moving sponges gif

The researchers report that they also often seemed to be in areas with smaller, juvenile sponges.

The trails were seen in areas with lots of sponges, as well as in more sparsely populated areas.

They often connected directly to living sponges. Those trails were several centimeters in height and up to many meters long. Far from a rarity, the researchers saw trails in nearly 70% of seafloor images that contained living sponges. But, even more intriguing were the numerous trails of sponge spicules. They say it's not clear, given the challenging environment, how the area supports such a vast community of sponges. hentscheli, and Stelletta rhaphidiophora individuals. The researchers determined that the impressive sponge populations were primarily comprised of large numbers of Geodia parva, G. Credit: AWI OFOBS team, PS101Ī towed marine camera sled and a hybrid remotely operated vehicle (HROV) showed that the peaks of the ridge were covered by one of the densest communities of sponges that's ever been seen. The discovery was made by studying video captured in 2016 by the research icebreaker Polarstern as it surveyed the submerged peaks of the permanently ice-covered Langseth Ridge. Nevertheless, the new findings took the research team by surprise. In some cases, that movement involved remodeling their whole bodies. There also has been some evidence of movement in sponges raised in the lab. They can react to external stimulation and move a little by contracting or expanding their bodies. Sponges, after all, have no muscles or specialized organs for moving around. But most species are thought to become sessile as adults. In fact, sponges do have a motile larval stage. It looked as though the sponges had 'crawled' into their current positions.

'This is the first time abundant sponge trails have been observed in situ and attributed to sponge mobility.' 'We observed trails of densely interwoven spicules connected directly to the underside or lower flanks of sponge individuals, suggesting these trails are traces of motility of the sponges,' the researchers, led by Teresa Morganti of the Max Planck Institute of Marine Microbiology and Autun Purser of the Alfred Wegener Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, write.

Live photo of sponges moving sponges gif