Describing the E.T. Sponge
For those who haven’t had the chance to see the E.T. sponge up close, Castello Branco’s got you covered. She told Gizmodo via email that the sponge is shaped like half of a ball with a couple of large openings and a single long leg, technically known as a peduncle, and lives in the depths of the Pacific Ocean. It gets its food by filtering seawater and finds bacteria “delicious!”
One of the characteristics she found most unique about the E.T. sponge was its shape and its spicules.
“I think its shape is very peculiar and characteristic but something that most people do not know about glass sponges, such as the E.T. sponge, is they have a very special skeleton made of silica ([the] same component of glass) and each species has an exclusive group of these structures with different shapes. We call them spicules and this species presents a very delicate and beautiful group of spicules,” Castello Branco said.
