If You Were Inside a Sponge...

Could you imagine being a sponge? That might sound pretty boring. But, maybe it’s time you looked inside a sponge. It’s a very busy animal even with no brain. Since you can’t take a real trip, let’s use our imaginations. Close your eyes. Wait- don’t close your eyes- you have to keep reading!

Imagine the ocean. Dive into it, and picture yourself shrinking. You drift through the water until you are about as big as a tiny shrimp. Ahead of you, you see a bright blue vase sponge.You follow the current until- whooosh!!!!!!! The sponge sucks you into its body! It goes black in front of you as the current pulls you through the pinacocyte skin into the area known as the spongocoel, the inside of the sponge.

You have already ran into the first thing that sponges do. This is water filtering. Every day, sponges take in hundreds of gallons of water. From the water, they find other things that help them. When they have used the water (in a short amount of time) and the things in it, the water is pushed out of the sponge. It goes out the osculum, a big hole on the top of the sponge. The water can also go out other smaller holes called "ostia."

Now, you are inside the sponge. You see a whip shooting out of your face and dart out of the way. It was just a choanocyte. These special cells catch food and oxygen. You see more cells swimming to you. They go up to the choanocytes and take the food and oxygen. These are the archaeocytes- the super cells. In a sponge, archaeocytes can do anything!

But this canal, or tunnel, is getting crowded. There are spicule stems and lots of sponge tissue called mesenchyme or mesohyl. (You can use both names) Inside of it, you also see all types of other animals. These tiny organisms are called plankton. Sponges eat the tiny plants within the plankton. The rest lives inside the sponge and grows. As the sponge grows, it has more tissues and can help more animals. You push your way out into a vast opening.

This is the central cavity. All the canals flow into here. You see thousands of cells. With a sudden whoosh- you are pushed out of the osculum, the big hole on the top of the sponge and find yourself safe and sound in front of your computer!