Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 103, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1913 — Sponge as an Animal. [ARTICLE]

Sponge as an Animal.

Nothing is less like a living creature than the common bath spopge, yet the fact remains that sponges do form a very important species of the animal kingdom, eating their food and living their lives much as any other animal would do. The actual existence of a sponge commences with the separation*from the parent of a tiny particle. This particle, whirling through space, event ually attaches Itself to a piece of rock, and from that time it seeks its own livelihood. At the very commencement, with some species of the sponge family, the baby sponges feed upon yolk cells, in which are stored food supplies. By-and-by, as the youngster develops, the currents in the water sweep into a kind of bag the minute particles of food required, and the same currents carry off undigested matter. There are many varieties of sponges found at different levels of the ocean, some clinging to rocks, others to mud.