Most sponges, inspiration for dish cleaners and mess absorbers, feed by filtering water through those many holes and channels. Their scientific name, Porifera, literally means pore bearer. The channels are lined with special cells, chanocytes, each containing a flagellum that continuously beats. This whirling action by the flagellum filters nutrients and small particles of food from the surrounding water. With the particles near, the cell quickly engulfs by wrapping part of its membrane around it like a puppy lost in blanket. However, in this metaphor the puppy is digested by a dog-sized cell.
Flagellum and ingesting puppies, metaphorically speaking, is the norm for most sponges. However, in the dark depths of oceans and in the black caverns of the marine caves, lurks Earth’s strangest creatures—the carnivorous sponges.
Earth’s strangest creatures—the carnivorous sponges.