Name ______Pd ______

Sponge Lab

Instructions: With your lab partner, stop at each station that has been set up throughout the room. Use each specimen, your notes, and your book to answer the following questions:

1.  Look at the outside and then the inside of this sponge. What specialized cells comprise the body wall of the sponge? Name and describe all that apply.

2.  Observe the following sponge colonies:

  1. What do you call the round opening at the top of these sponge colonies?
  1. Hold a specimen up to the light and observe the small openings in the specimen. What do you call the very small openings that allow water into the sponge?
  1. Use the box to draw a sketch that illustrates how water flows through the sponge colony. Describe how sponges accomplish water movement through them.

3.  Gently touch each of these sponges. What is the difference between each of these specimens? What might account for the differences?

4.  Observe the shapes of these sponges.

  1. What might be the evolutionary advantage of these shapes?
  1. Draw a sketch of how these sponges would attach to the ocean floor. What evidence supports your hypothesis?

5.  Are these specimens an example of a symbiotic relationship? Why?

6.  Observe the difference between these sponges. What might be the reason for such variety among sponges? What interesting things can be noticed in these specimens?

7/8. Do these specimens belong to the phylum Porifera? Support your conclusion with observations or information from the book.

9. There are over 9,000 sponge species. How do biologists name and classify them? One way is to study the types of the spicules that are found. Biologists have grouped the spicule shapes into four categories for use in naming and classifying the different species. After studying the different shapes below, group the names for each spicule into one of the four categories that you specify. (Put your answer on the back of this page.)