Tuesday, 11 February 2025
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Neptune’s Cup, is an amazing creature. Its occurrence is restricted to the tropical regions of the Indian Ocean. What is this creature? Well, it is one of the largest types of sea sponge. Its height reaches 150cm and its diameter is 80cm. Its name comes from its specific shape, which resembles a cup.
For over 100 years, no living representative of this species has been encountered. Until now, when a group of divers came across it off the coast of Singapore to their own astonishment. Although the encountered specimen was small in size, it is still an incredible sensation.
“When we came across this sponge, we immediately knew it was something unusual and completely unprecedented,” said Karenne Tun, a marine biologist with the DHI group.
Neptune’s Cup was first described in 1822. The fully mature and developed sponge was commonly used as… a baby bathtub. Unfortunately, the mass harvesting of sponges has led to the near extinction of this species. The last living specimen was sighted in Indonesian waters in 1908, and since then the species has been thought to be extinct. Single specimens of dead Neptune’s Sponges were found in the 1990s in Australia, so scientists had high hopes that the species had not completely disappeared.
“Very little is known about this creature. There has never been a chance to study a living individual. Now we will have the opportunity to make up for it. It is an amazing and very exciting experience. In fact, we already have the first insights. It was always thought to be a very slow growing species, whereas between our visits in April and August, it grew by a good few cm!” – Tun adds.
Formed over 150million years ago, sponges live on the seabed, feeding on plankton and other small organisms that they can catch by filtering water through their bodies.
Source: mongabay.com
Photo: DHI Group
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