TIL: This animal can live to be at least 8000 years old!

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(Edited)

This is yet another really fascinating animal I first heard about today while watching videos about deep sea creatures and shit.

What I am talking about are Hexactinellid sponges, or glass sponges as they are most commonly known.

Sure, I know, sponges are not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when we think of animals due to being mostly inanimate and so...un-animal like 😅 But at the end of the day, they are technically animals 😀

Glass sponges are pretty rare, usually occuring in depths ranging from 450 to 900 metres although certain survivors can be found in swallower or deeper waters. others have been found much deeper. Although occurring all over the world, they are most common in Antarctic and Northern Pacific waters.

But what makes them so fascinating? Well, they have two really amazing attributes!

First, they have remarkable longevity and they possibly are the world's longest living animal. How long they can go for is still up to debate, but it's in the thousands depending on the species.

In a recent paper, an individual of the Monorhaphis chuni glass sponge species was found to be at least 8000 thousand year old!!!! That's two times older then the Giza pyramids 😯😯😯

The lifespan of the spicule can be estimated to 11,000 ± 3000 years using the long-term trend of the inferred temperatures fitted to the seawater temperature–age relationships since the Last Glacial Maximum. source

But wait, there's more!

As their name suggests, their tissues are comprised of glass-like structural particles, called spicules, that are made of silica (hence their name).

The video below has some amazing footage of these creatures and explains a bit more about their glass like bodies.

And here's some more great footage by EVnautilis

Ok, one final video about the Venus flower basket glass sponge and their mutualistic relationship with the house glass sponge shrimp (tldr, the shrimp live, mate and eventually get trapped in the shelter the sponge provides)

All in all, amazing creatures, full of beauty and wonder!

Here are two links if you found these creatures as fascinating as me and want to learn more about them:

Posted with STEMGeeks



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31 comments
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Very, very cool! Too bad we won't live that long!

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Talk about yourself! 😅

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I'll only make to 800 or so like they used to in the bible, how long are you shooting for?

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Ocean never dissapoint to amaze us with unbelievable creatures!

Dayum, glass sponge is fascinating.. didn't knew such a creator with this long life spam exist..

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Basically, we are talking about a kind of living ceramic pot. Maybe that's why they live so long 😁

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living ceramic pot

ha! great description XD

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How the hell can they figure out how old they are?

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they ask them. duh

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🤣🤣🤣
Fucking !PIMP 🤣🤣

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Very good post. Nice to know about them. Glass sponges are awsome and especially the venus butterfly looks very beautiful.

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I think it gets boring living for that long doing nothing :))

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8k+ years....

That's a whole lot of birthday gifts from family members 😂😂

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@trumpman I have known about this species through a discovery program. They are one of the living creatures that can exist for a very long time. Their shell is very unique because it contains glass fibers and is very strong.

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Still surprise with that kind of life span but the humans who knew about this research don't even have a chance to live 1% to be alive 🤣

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If I reached that age, my balls would be dragging across both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Talk about intercontinental drift!

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Congratulations your publication has been chosen among the best of the day.

KEEP CREATING GOOD CONTENT.

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