1. The Sponges – Phylum Porifera

2. Porifera – the sponges
Porus (pore) + Fera (bearing) Abundant marine grp w some fresh water (f.w.) species. Can range in size from small crusts or growths or simple vases few mm high to 1-2 meters.

3. Classification Kingdom Animalia (animals) Phylum Porifera (sponges)
Classes:
1. Calcarea (calcerous sponges - having spicules)
2. Demosponginae (horn sponges, like the bath sponge)
3. Scleropongiae (coralline or tropical reef sponges)
4. Hexactinellida (glass sponges).

4. Definition
Porifera are asymmetrical or radially symmetrical animals without
Organs, mouth, digestive system or nervous tissue.
Their bodies are porous, with canals and chambers thru which a water current flows,
One to many internal cavities lined with choanocytes.

5. Symmetry Explained
Bilateral Symmetry - Right side of body is mirror image of the left side
Radial Symmetry - One slide (like pie) is the mirror image of another slice.

6.  ASymmetry
Asymmetry. No slice through the body will divide it into two like halves. Most sponges. Asymmetrical animals are plant-like and display irregular growth.

7. Radial Symmetry
Radial symmetry. The body has the general form of a short or tall cylinder with one main longitudinal axis around and along which parts are arranged.
Any plane thru this longitudinal axis divides the body into 2 like halves.
Examples: Some of the sponges which are vase-shaped, the Cnidaria and the echinoderms.

10. Bilateral Symmetry Bilateral symmetry.
one plane of symmetry which divides an animal into left and right halves which are comparatively the same.
Most animals.

11. More Defining Characters
No mouth organs, systems, digestive tract, anus, nerve cells.
Surface perforated by numerous pores.
Incurrent openings are small and numerous
Excurrent - few and large

12. More Defining Characters
Internal cavities.
Interior is hollow or permeated by numerous channels.
Some or all interior spaces are lined by specialized cells called choanocytes.

13. Sponge Anatomy 101

14. Sponge Sex – ewww!

15. Cool Stuff – Regeneration!
Tremendous ability to repair and restore lost parts.
Can also reconstitute selves if totally disintegrated.
Sponge tissue has some similarity to human connective tissue. Could lead to aid in tissue transplantation.

16. Importance of Sponges Reefs provide habitat for many animals
Vacuums of the sea -- clean up the sea floor/oceans
Sponges are a commercial venture
Several medicinal compounds, including antibiotics, antivirual drugs, and drugs for leukemia come from sponges.

17. Jellyfish, Corals Anemones and Hydroids
Cnidarians
Jellyfish, Corals Anemones
and Hydroids

18. Cnidarians Cnidarians eat mussels, fish, plankton, and worms.
Cnidarians eat by stinging their prey so it becomes paralyzed, and then they bring the food into their stomach.

19. Phylum Cnidaria
Soft bodied animals with stinging tentacles arranged in circles around the mouth
Radial Symmetry
Specialized cells and tissues, including nervous sys
Lifecycles often include two different stages: polyp and medusa
3 Body layers: Ectoderm, Mesoderm, Endoderm
Nematocysts – stingers
Only one internal cavity, the digestive cavity, with a mouth, but no anus.

20. Life Cycle & Polymorphism
Two basic types of individuals: polyps and medusae.
Dominance of Medusa or Polyp lifecycle varies species to species.

21. Polyp Stage of Life Cycle
Polyp = adapted for sedentary or sessile life. Tubular body w/ mouth at one end surrounded by tentacles.
May live singly or in colonies.

22. Colonial polyps

23. Medusa
Medusa = jellyfish form, free swimming and sexually mature form,
bell-shaped or umbrella-shaped bodies,
radial symmetry
mouth centered on concave side, tentacles and one or more types of sense organs borne on rim of umbrella.
Medusa provides dispersal mechanism so don't compete with parents. Mesoglea much thicker than in polyp - constitutes bulk of animal - makes it buoyant = "jelly" of jellyfish.

24. Medusa

25. CNIDARIANS
CNIDARIANS have no bones, are hollow with 3 layers of cells.
They live in salt or fresh water.
When a cnidarian reproduces, the young hatch into the mother stomach, then, She spits them out.
CNIDARIANS have no bones, are hollow with 3 layers of cells. They live in salt or fresh water. When a cnidarian reproduces, the young hatch into the mother stomach, then, She spits them out.

26. Classification of Cnidarians Classes: Scyphozoa, Cubozoa and Anthozoa
Jellyfishes (Classes Scyphozoa and Cubozoa) are predominantly medusae w/ polyp stage very reduced or completely absent.
Corals and anemones (Class Anthozoa) are entirely polyps, no medusa.

27. The Portuguese Man o War wasn’t just a Ship

28. Physalia from Jamaica

29. Portuguese Man O War
A tenacious hunter with a taste for fish and the poison to render most prey helpless
Yikes!

30. Size: to 1 ft (float) and 50 ft (tentacles)
           
Portuguese Man 'O War   
Physalia physalia
Size: to 1 ft (float) and 50 ft (tentacles)
Habitat: floats at the surface
Notes: dangerous
Fortunately, this creature, with its powerful battery of stinging tentacles, is more common in bays and protected waters than in the open ocean. The sting of the Man'O'War can vary from extremely painful to incapacitating to fatal, depending on the severity and the victim's reaction.

31. Jellyfish sting to defend themselves.
The Man of War is poisonous to humans.
When a cnidarian reproduces, the young hatch into the mother’s stomach, then, she spits them out

32. Other Dangerous Jellyfish
           
Moon Jellyfish / Red Jellyfish ( Lion's Mane )   
 Aurelia aurita / Cyanea capillata
Habitat: anywhere
Notes:
Jellyfishes are free-swimming relatives of  corals, anemones, and hydroids. In fact, in many cases they are the same animal, just in a different stage of life ! Not all medusas ( as jellyfishes are called ) have a corresponding polyp stage, and likewise not all polyps have a corresponding medusa stage, but most conform to this life cycle. Small jellies ( up to 1" across ) are most likely the medusa stage of some hydroid, while large jellies are usually the dominant stage of a species in which the polyp stage is almost absent.
Translucent Moon Jellies are harmless and quite common. Red Jellies have a painful wasp-like sting, but are usually much less common. And try as you might to avoid it, sooner or later every northern diver will get a stray tentacle draped across the face and lips - the only places exposed to attack.
Size:
to 10" ( Moon Jellyfish ) to 36" ( Red Jellyfish )

33. Moon Jellyfish

34. Beached Moon Jellies: the surf has stripped away all the tentacles, leaving just a harmless dying blob of goo.

35. Swim away – swim away NOW! !
Red or Lion's Mane Jelly
Avoid these.
Swim away – swim away NOW! !

36. Nematocysts
Hold prey
Sticky -- aid in locomotion by attaching tentacles
Penetrate and anchor in prey and poison it.

37. Nematocysts can be Pretty

38. Nematocyst poison
Most dangerous to man is Cubozoan jellyfish, the sea wasp (Chironex fleckeri).   Caused more human suffering and death off Australian coasts than Physalia (Portuguese man-of-war) has in any of its home waters.
Symptoms range from:
burning pain at site of contact
lesions and eruptions of various sorts, often severe enough to leave scars,
great pain, fever, and respiratory interference.
severe reactions due to shock & allergies
"Sting" of most is imperceptible to humans. Problems usually occur only when repeatedly stung.

39. Clown fish live in anemones, and coral and they’re immune to stings!

40. Fire Coral and Tube Anemone

41. Reproductive Characteristics
Asexual reproduction by budding (in polyps)
Sexual reproduction by gametes (in all medusae and some polyps).
Sexual forms monoecious or dioecious; primitive gonads; ciliated free-swimming larva in life cycle of most