Red Encrusting Sponge Fact Sheet

Common Name: Red Encrusting Sponge

Scientific Name: Clathria (Isociella) oudekraalensis

Wild Status: Endangered

Habitat: Coral Reefs

Country: South Africa

Life Span: Up to 20 years Details

The Red Encrusting Sponge is a beautiful and uniquely colored animal that resides along the South African coast. Like other species of sponge, it is most often found living among coral in coral reefs, where it remains in place for the entirety of its lifespan. Often mistaken for plant life or inanimate rocks, these are invertebrates that feed on plankton filtered from the water around it. Although they are not plants, sponges of all types play an important role in maintaining balanced levels of nutrients and bacteria in the water around them.

Cool Facts

• Unlike the Purple Vase Sponge, the Red Encrusting Sponge is not hollow and does not house other sea critters. • While not much information is available on these sponges, they reproduce both asexually (without a partner) and sexually (with a partner). • Although they filter the ocean, there are things they cannot clean, such as plastic bags. It is our responsibility as humans to clean up where other organisms cannot

Taxonomic Breakdown Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Porifera Class: Demospongiae Order: Poecilosclerida Suborder: Microcionina Family: Microcionidae Subfamily: Microcioninae Genus: Clathria Subgenus: Clathria (Isociella) Species: C. oudekraalensis Conservation & Helping

Like all organisms dependent on coral reefs, climate change and pollution may decimate the sponge population in the next few decades. Because sponges are so diverse and difficult to study harmlessly, it is not clear whether the Red Encrusting Sponge itself is in any more or less danger than other species of sponge.

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