Sponges are fixed or sedentary animals that are quite common inhabitants of most of the world’s marine environments. They are common on Vancouver Island.
Velvety Red Sponge
The Velvety Red Sponge can be found from Alaska to California, you can see it at low tide in most parts of the Pacific Northwest coastal region. The velvety red sponge is a red to orange sponge that can grow more than 1 meter across. It has a soft, smooth, but very tough surface that has many small star-like holes scattered around its surface. Read More….
Sponges are fixed or sedentary animals that are quite common inhabitants of most of the world’s marine environments. They are very common in the waters surrounding Vancouver Island. They can be seen from the inter-tidal zone right down to over 700 meters deep. There are even a few species that live in freshwater environments. The variety of colours associated with sponges is pretty damn awesome. Sometimes the seafloor is ablaze with colour from the various sponges living there.
Sponges can be a thin encrusting mat or can come in tall erect structures that can reach over 2 meters tall. There are over 270 various species in the waters around the island with many more types over the world, they are all beautiful and fascinating to see. Sponges feed by siphoning as they draw water into spores in their bodies, and then the water is expelled through larger holes. They filter out the nutrients and other tiny bits of food. Sponges are themselves, eaten by sea stars like the leather and blood stars and chitons. A few are eaten by nudibranchs.
Adult sponges are fundamentally sessile animals, and yet some marine and freshwater species will move around the bottom at an astonishing speed of up to 4mm per day. This may not sound like much but it really is an amazing accomplishment.