Glass Sponge

Creator

Preview

Photo Credit

Meredith C. Swartwout, Ph.D. Candidate, Biological Sciences

Object Type

Dried Mount Oceanic Specimen

Date

Spring 2021

Description

This Glass Sponge (Euplectella speciousa) doesn’t look like how most people imagine sponges. In fact, its delicate lace-like structure, once dried, feels firm, almost like ceramic. The household sponges that people use for cleaning originally were made from soft sea sponges, but today our cleaning sponges are primarily synthetic. Did you know that sponges are the most primitive animal on Earth? They lack nervous systems, heads, and backbones but possess specialized cells that allow them to filter out and capture food particles from the seawater.

Object Housed

University of Arkansas Museum

Object Accession Number

79-1-639