Scientific Name: Porifera
Distribution: In oceans all around the world
Sea sponges are animals, although they do not look
or behave like most animals we find on land. There
are over 5,000 species of sea sponge in the world.
They are bright and colour ful, and most look ver y
dif ferent from one another – some are “encrusting”
and cover the rocks like a carpet, others look like big
barrels, and others like trumpets. Their bodies are full
of pores and channels that let water circulate through
them, much like the sponges that you find in your
kitchen or bathroom.
Sponges live in ever y ocean of the world, and
feed by absorbing tiny par ticles from the water
flowing through them, getting the nutrients they
need, and expelling the rest in a form that provides
valuable nutrients for other sea creatures. Sponges
can filter out as much as 90 percent of the bacteria
in the water that passes through them. They are also
ver y good at removing carbon from the environment,
which is ver y impor tant for managing climate change.
In a single day, one sponge can clean a volume of
water 10,000 times its size!
Scientific Name: Lysmata amboinensis
Distribution: Indo-Pacific Ocean
This compact crustacean, much like the cleaner
wrasse, feeds on the parasites and dead tissue
on other marine animals! They grow up to six
centimetres in length and are coloured a striking
red and white. These colours act as a signal to
other creatures that the shrimp will clean them. The
cleaner shrimp sets up a “cleaning station”, which
attracts animals to its free spa. The shrimp will
even venture into the mouth and gills of much larger
animals like the moray eel.
The Pacific cleaner shrimp is born as a male, but
after a while, will function as both male and female!SEA SPONGES
PACIFIC CLEANER SHRIMPS
GOING GREEN!