Love is in the ocean not in the air this Valentine’s Day. Just ask this romantic heart-shaped sponge.
Heart-shaped sponge just below the surface at Flinders. And yes, that shape is the live animal, no Photoshop, just a quirky growth form.
Image: © John Gaskell
Imagine spending Valentine's Day dinner sifting through a mouthful of muddy silt. You're joined by several friends nearby to hug or hold hands with, but the only kiss on offer is from a fish that tries to eat you. And sex after dinner? Not tonight, unless you happen to be skilful enough to catch a comrade's passing sperm in the water. That's the life for many a sponge.
The photographer at the heart of the sponge image is John Gaskell. He’s a local diver, consultant and author of the popular local marine guide Beneath Our Bay. He also collaborates with Reef Watch to spread word on our interesting marine life. He caught this one at Flinders last week truly romancing the reef as it grows.
“Maybe the sponges are trying to tell us something,” Gaskell told Reef Watch, “reduce effluent or love our underwater reefs more”.
Keeping in the spirit of sponge love, Museum Victoria is producing Sponges, the next book in the science field guide series. Written by local expert Lisa Goudie, it celebrates not only sexual and asexual reproduction in sponges (Phylum Porifera), but also the diversity of species in Victorian waters and their amazing shapes and colours.
Diversity of shape and colour of sponges in Victorian waters.
Image: Mark Norman and Julian Finn
The non-love sponge information:
Household sponges were once made of skeletal remains of true sponges from the ocean, although modern times replace the natural form with synthetic products. Not all sponges are soft; some are prickly, crumbly or slimy. Most species are marine, but a few live in freshwater. Sponges are not colonies of individual animals, but rather collections of cells that have specialised functions. Fossils indicate that this animal group has existed for at least 600 million years. They are some of the longest-lived animals in the world, with individuals of a tropical species being estimated at age of 2000 years. Other species are short lived and die back each year.
Museum Victoria Science books
Sponges on the Port Phillip Bay Marine Life website