But the mucus buffet shows they also play a key role as providers of food, says Amanda Kahn. Scientists often think of sponges mainly as habitat builders. Other sea critters feasted on these ocean boogers. Just one contraction took between 20 and 50 minutes! Unlike an explosive human sneeze, the sponges continuously secreted debris-filled mucus from their pores. In real time, a single sneeze takes between 20 and 50 minutes to complete. Those boogers then slide along a “mucus highway.” They collect into stringy clumps of goo that float above the surface of the sponge. As this time-lapse video zooms in closer, you can see tiny specks of debris floating out of these pores. The Caribbean tube sponge ( Aplysina archeri) uses contractions called “sneezes” to eject mucus from its pores. This action gathered the mucus into stringy, gooey clumps. Sneezelike contractions seemed to expel and move the specks along a “mucus highway” on the surface of the sponge. This snot moved against the flow of incoming water. In the footage, Leys’ group saw tiny specks of mucus leaving the pores. archeri revealed a further effect of such sneezing. Typically, water enters through a sponge’s pores and leaves through a hole near its top.īut time-lapse videos of A. Sea sponges were known to contract their bodies in an action dubbed “sneezing.” But scientists thought sponges only did this to push water through their bodies in a one-way flow. The sponge’s mucus is “constantly streaming.” Leys is an evolutionary biologist at the University of Alberta. It’s “like someone with a runny nose,” says team member Sally Leys.

#seasponges #animals #marinebiology #science #learnitontiktok ♬ original sound – sciencenewsofficial Sponges may be the last animal you’d expect to find sneezing, but time-lapse videos show they launch slow-motion snot rockets.

How does water move through a sponge?