‘Largest Sponge in the World?’

Exact details about massive sea sponges in general can be scarce.

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Hawaii studied the sponge for about a year before releasing their findings.

Kelley said they took samples of a sponge of the same species they found the day before the larger one and sent them to the world’s top experts, and no one could identify what genus the sponge belongs to.

A remotely operated vehicle (ROV) has detected a huge creature hitherto unknown to science quite under the water surface north of the Hawaiian Islands. Although not much is known about the lifespans of sponges, large species found in shallow waters are believed to live for more than 2,300 years.

Giant sponges, like this newly discovered one, provide key ecosystem services “such as filtering large amounts of seawater, as well as providing important habitat to a myriad of invertebrate and microbial species”, the researchers wrote in the journal Marine Biodiversity.

Now, a new study reports that it is the largest sponge ever documented, at about 11.5 feet long, more than 6.5 feet wide and 4.9 feet high.

And there’s more to this sponge than its girth: It could also be among the oldest living animals on earth. Some sponges capable of growing to massive sizes can live for thousands of years, scientists believe.

Wagner told New Scientist he estimates the sponge to be around 1,000 years old.

Christopher Kelley, program biologist at the Hawaii Undersea Research Lab, who helped lead the expedition with Wagner, said the crew captured images of the sponge with remote underwater cameras that were positioned above their underwater research vehicle.

That this deep-ocean sponge doesn’t appear to have been disturbed may have allowed it to become so large. Right now, the NOAA researchers aren’t sure what to call the car-sized sponge they found 7,000 feet under the waters off Hawaii.

The biggest sponge in the world has been discovered in the deep sea off the north-western Hawaiian Islands.

“The largest portion of our planet lies in deep waters, the vast majority of which has never been explored”, Wagner said.

We do know, however, that several coral species that live at those depths can live to multiple hundred to even a few thousand years: the oldest one is 4500 years, said researcher David Wagner. Most sea sponges feed on single-celled organisms, which they filter from water, but some are more voracious, catching small crustaceans.