Marine sponges harbour complex and species-specific microbial communities that contribute to host nutrition, structural integrity and chemical defence. These symbionts, including bacteria (notably ...

Many Caribbean coral reef sponges make their own food from sunlight, ranking them among the reef's top producers.

World's Oldest Living Sponge: Recent Marine Scientific reports have identified the world’s largest Giant Barrel Sponge ...

Geobiologists reported a 550 million-year-old sea sponge that had been missing from the fossil record. The discovery sheds new light on a conundrum that has stumped zoologists and paleontologists for ...

At first glance, the simple sea sponge is no creature of mystery. No brain. No gut. No problem dating it back 700 million years. Yet convincing sponge fossils only go back about 540 million years, ...

When picturing the earliest animals on Earth, most people imagine ancient fish or tiny marine creatures drifting through prehistoric seas. But new research has revealed a far more humble origin story ...

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When we think of marine life, we usually picture colorful coral reefs or dense seaweed forests filled with fish and other critters. The ocean that comes to mind is the one touched by sunlight. However ...

Virginia Tech geobiologist Shuhai Xiao and collaborators reported a 550 million-year-old sea sponge fossil, filling in a gap in the evolutionary family tree of one of the earliest animals. Photo by ...

When we think of marine life, we usually picture colourful coral reefs or dense seaweed forests filled with fish and other critters. The ocean that comes to mind is the one touched by sunlight.