How Scientists Confirm Whether They’ve Found a New Sponge
To confirm they’ve found a new sponge, scientists have to analyze its spicules, or the skeletal elements of the sponge, using powerful microscopes. Castello Branco said that the types of spicules and how they are organized vary across different types of sponges. Thus, scientists use them to make identifications. However, besides that, researchers must also compare what they see to all the known species of a particular genus.
In this case, Castello Branco said once she began to examine the sponge’s spicules, she realized they were different from those of any other known species.
