The Houston Museum of Natural Science was founded in 1909 – meaning that the curators of the Houston Museum of Natural Science have been collecting and preserving natural and cultural treasures for a hundred years now. For this yearlong series, our current curators have chosen one hundred exceptional objects from the Museum’s immense storehouse of specimens and artifacts—one for each year of our history. Check back here frequently to learn more about this diverse selection of behind-the-scenes curiosities—we will post the image and description of a new object every few days.
This description is from David Temple, the museum’s curator of paleontology. He’s chosen a selection of objects that represent the most fascinating fossils in the Museum’s collections, that we’ll be sharing here – and at 100.hmns.org/ – throughout the year.
Sponge, Protospongia rhenana encrusting a cephalopod, Orthoceras
(Devonian, Hunsruck, Slate, Bunden bach, Germany)
This sponge, Protospongia rheana is an example of a delicate animal preserved after being drowned in oxygen-poor silt 390 million years ago. A sessile animal, this sponge attached to a hard spot on the sea floor. On this example, it attached itself to the hard remains of the cephalopod, orthoceras. This sponge may have been buried in place in, or broken free of, the seabed and swept by currents along the bottom before settling in a low area, its final resting place.