SPECIMENS of this sponge collected at Calf Sound, Isle of Man, were investigated for spicules, and for their arrangement in the body of the sponge. Six types of spicules were found, ranging from ...

These reactions provided silicic acid in seawater-the necessary starting material for siliceous spicules. In marine environments, silica concentrations are relatively low, thus the need to augment the ...

“Sponge spicules are unbreakable because of a collagenous network within the siliceous spicules.” The research was published in the journal Nature Chemistry.

For sponge spicules, seawater serves as the cladding. A big difference in refractive indexes between two materials is a plus for collecting and confining light within a fiber.

There is nothing to prove this, hypothesis in the observation that the first rudiment of the spicule in Stelletta is a skeleton-crystal on the tetrahedral system, afterwards overlaid (as we have ...

The sponge in question belongs to the species Monorhaphis chuni, and they spend their lives anchored to ocean substrate via a single giant spicule. Their body is then wrapped around the spicule ...

The latter is a protein from siliceous sponges that, in nature, catalyzes the formation of silica, which forms the natural silica spicules of sponges.

The sclerocytes manufacture the spicules. A separate guild of “transport cells” then fix themselves to the spicules and shuttle them around the sponge.

The trails are made of the sponges’ spicules—the hard bits of the sponge that protect its softer tissues and provide the creatures’ structure.

Sponges (Porifera) -- the phylogenetically oldest, multicellular organisms (Metazoa) -- are able to transduce light inside their bodies by employing amorphous, siliceous structures.

The microscopic spicules "weave" together to form a very fine mesh, which gives the sponge's body a rigidity not found in other sponge species and allows it to survive at great depths in the water ...

Their shapes and structures are very similar; however, the grids in Helicolocellus are made of organic matter, whereas the grids in Paleozoic sponge fossils are made of biomineralized spicules.