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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.

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.Ī 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. 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. But, according to a new study in the journal Current Biology on Apin which researchers describe mysterious trails of light brown sponge spicules (spike-like support elements in sponges) across the Arctic seafloor - that isn’t always so. The aquatic animal known as the sponge is often described as entirely sessile: once they’ve settled in a spot and matured, they aren’t generally thought of as moving around. This image shows trails left by sponges as they crawl across the seafloor.