How Low Can You Go?

Imagine a mile. Now, imagine another mile. When you think of a mile, you think of something that goes forward, right? Well, if you were a sponge and if sponges could think, you would think of miles as going down. The ocean, while it is thousands of miles wide, also goes down for several miles in many areas. Scientists talk about length using the metric system- a measuring system that is used everywhere in the world but the United States of America. A mile is one and six-tenths of a kilometers, so from now on, since mostly everybody uses the metric system, we will talk about kilometers, instead of miles. For those people still stuck on using the customary system, we're sorry!

Well, sponges live at different depths. Near the shore, the water is shallow. On the ocean floor, sponges may live in the shallow waters. Also, in the shallow waters, there are coral reefs which sponges live in. Some sponges live in caves. Others live in trenches and canyons, deep in the ocean. The table below shows what sponges live in different areas.

0 meters	Calcarea -Sphinctozoa (5 to 40 meters) -lives in caves, shaded tunnels   Demosponge -Triaenosina (30 to 1300 meters)   -Rhabdosina (16 to 735 meters)
1,000 meters	Demosponge -Anoplina (30 to 2000 meters)
2,000 meters	Hexactinellids (deep sea) -Hexasterophora lives on ocean floor and is attached to a firm base   -Amphodiscorophora not firmly attached, elaborate shaped
3,000 meters
4,000 meters
5,000 meters	Demosponge -Tetractinomorpha live at least at a depth of 5,500 meters -diverse in form
6,000 meters
7,000 meters	Demosponge -Ceractinomorpha (may also live in intertidal depths)