Dani and I have been working on a project about how sponges heal from wounds. We have been working with a particular sponge species, they are everywhere in the reef, but no one seems to know what it is! Any help on the identification of the sponge would be cool... if for some reason a sponge expert is reading this blog. It is tannish brown, papillated, and frequently forms a barrel shape. Anyway, here's a sneak peak! We plan to use a computer software to quantify the healing of the sponges, so that is why we included the reference size of a dime.
This image is particularly interesting to me because you can clearly see how the sponge forms bridges to the places where the nubs of the sponge used to be before filling in the rest.
This sponge healed faster than most, completely filling in its wound with scar tissue on day 2.
This poor sponge had its wound worsened by fish taking advantage of an easy snack.
This image is particularly interesting to me because you can clearly see how the sponge forms bridges to the places where the nubs of the sponge used to be before filling in the rest.
update: Dani figured out the species finally
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