Finger Sponge Coral 194

The finger sponge is a branching, soft bodied sponge that is red-brown or yellow-brown in coloration. It can grow up to cm high. Branches of the sponge are somewhat flattened and perforated to allow water to filter in and out the organism. It is filter feeding organism that lives a sedentary life-style attached to the sea floor. The finger sponge coral 194 can be found all over the North Atlantic to the southern limits along the Atlantic coast of Portugal. They live in the shallow subtidal and intertidal zones.  Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera are a basal Metazoa (animal) clade as a sister of the Diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through them, consisting of jelly-like mesohyl sandwiched between two thin layers of cells. The branch of zoology that studies sponges is known as spongiology.  Sponges have unspecialized cells that can transform into other types and that often migrate between the main cell layers and the mesohyl in the process. Finger Sponge Coral 194 do not have nervous, digestive or circulatory systems. Instead, most rely on maintaining a constant water flow through their bodies to obtain food and oxygen and to remove wastes. Sponges were first to branch off the evolutionary tree from the common ancestor of all animals, making them the sister group of all other animals.  Sponges are similar to other animals in that they are multicellular, heterotrophic, lack cell walls and produce sperm cells. Unlike other animals, they lack true tissues^[10] and organs. Some of them are radially symmetrical, but most are asymmetrical. The shapes of their bodies are adapted for maximal efficiency of water flow through the central cavity, where the water deposits nutrients and then leaves through a hole called the osculum. Many sponges have internal skeletons of spongin and/or spicules (skeletal-like fragments) of calcium carbonate or silicon dioxide.^[10] All sponges are sessile aquatic animals, meaning that they attach to an underwater surface and remain fixed in place.