Talk:Sponge

From Academic Kids

are there also one-cellular animals, or are they all classified as Protista? AxelBoldt

I don't know for sure, but I would imagine so. Perhaps I should make the article more unclear on that subject? (also, I actually didn't see the PBS show myself, but someone I was chatting with on IRC was watching it and I was aghast to discover no sponge article here on Wikipedia. Had to fix that quick. :) Bryan Derksen

All sponges are in the kingdom animalia and are therefore multi-cellular (protista are single-celled organisms that sometimes form colonies). Although the interaction of those cells is very primitive compared to the cells in your body or even in a worm. As a side note, some groups of sponges are little more than collections of cells that work together on a higher level than colonial organisms do. --maveric149

There's also Porifera, we should probably merge. Animalia confirms that all animals are multi-cellular, so we can drop the "multi-cellular" from the text of the article. AxelBoldt

Sorry I missed this discussion. There's a small group of single-celled eukaryotes, called the Myxozoa, which probably evolved from Cnidaria and so could be counted as animals. But this is just as a matter of interest - the implication of multicellularity is still there. --Josh Grosse

Very interesting! I wasn't aware of such an organism. However, I personally wouldn't count them as animals just because they evolved from them (would have to know more about their physiology first; also would have to look again at the definition of animalia - which I am pretty sure precludes single-celled organisms). Cases like this is what the kingdom Protista is for -- for all the non-conformist organisms that defy our insistance on artifically grouping them anywhere else. One could also argue that viruses are in fact bacteria, since they probably evolved from them. But that is another story.... All this is very fascinating and should be researched. --maveric149, Wednesday, April 3, 2002

Biologists nowadays tend to define groups in terms of evolutionary relationships, rather than in terms of characteristics, where possible. It works out better that way. As for viruses evolving from bacteria, well, remember there are at least two unrelated group of prokaryotes (Eubacteria and Archaea)... --JG

As a biologist, I do need to point out that all life on earth is decended from a single ancestral species. So solely basing things on evolutionary relationships, one could argue that we are all in the same kingdom. Such arguements are interesting but not very useful. If in fact B is decended from A and is very different from A, then you might be able to argue that B forms a separate group, family, or kingdom -- depending on the amount of difference. Oddball eukaryotes that have equally strange evolutionary relationships are grouped with the protists in their kingdom. All this really is is nomenclature -- and it arises from our stubborn insistence on grouping things and therefore naming and making them perhaps more different in our minds than they actually are. However, it still is useful to group things in a logical way based upon sets of criteria. That is what makes the science of biology possible. But this is beginning to be more philosophy than biology..... --maveric149, Monday, April 8, 2002

As a protobiologist (BSc in genetics), I thought I might add that saying all Earth life currently alive descended from a single ancestral species might be a bit of an oversimplification; many of the theories of abiogenesis that I've read up on feature a complex network of chemical reactions slowly evolving its way over from non-life into a life-like state; it could well be that by the time it reached the point that it could be reasonably divided into "species" there were already many closely related ones in existance. But that's dealing with an era before prokaryotes were invented, not really a relevant domain where we're discussing something as incredibly advanced as sponges. :) Bryan Derksen, Monday, April 8, 2002

I suggest a short lay definition for Sponges in the Sponge article and have a link to Porifera where most of the content will be. --maveric149

The section on commercial uses of sponges should stay here, though, since people never buy or sell "poriferates" to use for cleaning :) Bryan Derksen

I have uploaded a photo of a sponge. I know nothing about sponges but I stumbled across this restriction-free image (of what I'm fairly sure is a sponge skeleton of some sort) and then noticed that this page had no images, so perhaps it would be an improvement... Ds13 09:29, 2004 Feb 24 (UTC)

Good work on image, will try go do that. Have removed spicules need to be explained. from the article, placing here instead.Mat-C 17:45, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

How is 'spongocoel' pronounced? spUnj-o-seal? spOng-o-cole? Jenks 09:15, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Since sponges lack muscles and nerves, which all animals have, I would not list sponges as animals. I believe that we should reclassify porifera as a kingdom of multicellular organisms.

Ŭalabio 07:43, 2004 Jul 15 (UTC)

All other animals have muscles and nerves - except, of course, things like Placozoa and Myxozoa. The point is sponges are the closest relatives of the other animals, possibly even paraphyletic to them, and share many of their important characteristics. Thus, their traditional classification as animals seems secure. If it turned out they were a genuinely unrelated group, then they'd have to be treated as a separate kingdom, or more likely a phylum of Protista. Josh 09:26, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Added ==Geological history== and other text from an article I originally wrote in 1998 and published on the Web.

Dlloyd 20:42, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Portions of this text are :

"Copyright � 1995-1997 The Fossil Company Ltd. � 1997-1999 The British Fossil Company Inc. and licensed by the owner under the terms of the Wikipedia copyright." Please contact me if you need further clarification on this.

Dlloyd 00:46, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Contents

1 Page needs major editing

2 Colour correcting pictures

3 Strange sea creature

4 Immune System

5 Immune System

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Page needs major editing

This is a pretty nice page, but it could use some major reorganization and breakdown. Geological history appears at the bottom, while fossil talk is above. There seems to be cruft regarding mobile versus non-mobile that should be clarified. There are also sponges that bore into rocks (http://www.seaotter.com/marine/research/cliona/celata/html/0celata.jpg.html) and (http://www.masla.com/invert/sponges.html). (These are the first couple links off Google for 'sponge blender', trying to make sure I'm not spreading misinformation.)

Is there anyone 'in charge' of this page or that feels up for the task?

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Colour correcting pictures

Please don't colour correct my marine photographs. Thanks.

Dlloyd 08:56, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why?--Eloquence *

Well.... The colour corrected version is totally and utterly inaccurate for one thing. All of the sponges like this one were a muted yellow colour, even at shallow depth. Not the bright, heavily red of the "corrected" image. So, someone comes along, "corrects" my photograph, and then replaces my original with a version which looks absolutely nothing like the sponge which I saw and photographed at 100+ feet.......Then to top it off, someone who doesn't even know if the image is a sponge or a marine worm tube comes along and comments that NOAA has better pictures anyway. Dlloyd 00:44, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Guess the color correction was me. I have moved that image to a separate location now. Sorry -- Chris 73 Talk 03:59, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

So, you think that your images can't be edited? You DO know this is a joiint project, right? All of your images, as well as all of the articles you have edited, are released to public editing. That's the nature of the game. Rick K 05:35, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

Of course his images can be edited, but he's politely requesting that they aren't replaced like this. We should respect his preferences if we appreciate high-quality images like this. I think the normal picture looks better, and has the advantage of showing what sponges actually look like. The other one looks distinctly false color, and that's not even knowing what color the sponge was supposed to be. Josh 05:59, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Listing every image he's ever posted to Wikipedia for speedy deletion and leaving the project in a huff is not politely requesting. Rick K

No, it isn't. It's saying he feels his contributions haven't been appreciated, and to say "too late, you already made them" is inappropriate. Josh

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