Many corals and sponges form skeletons that support and shape their bodies. Whereas biomineralization – the formation of these skeletons – has been intensively studied in corals, the main ecosystem ...

Lanice spongicola lives on a glass sponge, a deep-sea sponge with a skeleton made of silica, that rises from hard rock. The ...

A team of MIT geochemists has unearthed new evidence in very old rocks suggesting that some of the first animals on Earth were likely ancestors of the modern sea sponge. Subscribe to our newsletter ...

When thinking about the ancient animals of Earth, you likely picture fish, birds, and dinosaurs. But a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the ...