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Today we will tell you about a very interesting creature - a sea sponge.
A sea sponge is not a plant or a coral.
This animal.
The sea sponge is not a very complex organism - it does not have a central nervous system,
it does not have a brain, there is no blood circulation, digestion, and generally complete
organs.
Sea sponges live on the sea floor.
They don't move.
These underwater inhabitants of the sea are attached to a solid surface and live in one
place all the time.
Some types of sponges are found in freshwater lakes and rivers, the so-called "badyag" sponges.
But freshwater sponges are not suitable for commercial use.
Sea sponges are able to regulate the amount of water passed through their bodies by narrowing
the openings.
They actively filter the flow of water passing through their structures by continuously beating
thousands of tiny flagella in their pores.
Sea Sponges pump over 200,000 times their own body volume of water every day.
The main diet of the sea sponge is organic particles and plankton.
They filter the ocean for food.
The flowing water provides the sponges with nutrients and oxygen.
Sponges love to eat well.
On average, they eat 2/3 of their own body weight.
If you think that collecting sea sponges is bad, then you are wrong.
Sea sponges can be up to 150 years old if not collected from time to time.
If the sea sponge is not harvested, they lose their ability to regenerate over time.
Only a short lifespan of 10-20 years is optimal for them.
The natural sea sponge has been important to society in terms of hygiene for many centuries.
Before the advent of synthetic products and artificial detergents, the natural sponges
of the sea were used by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.
Sea sponges thrive in a wide range of climates - from tropical to polar - and can survive
in all latitudes - from intertidal zones all the way to the deepest regions of the sea,
including in sea underwater caves where there is no light at all.
However, the sponges of the Mediterranean, Aegean and Red Sea have the highest quality.
Sponge fishing has been a source of income for many of the Greek islands over the past
centuries, and the most famous center of the Greek sponge fishery is the island of Kalymnos.
The waters around the Greek islands are very suitable for the growth of sponges due to
the high temperature.
Sponges of the best quality live in the southeastern part of the Mediterranean Sea.
In the old days, sponge fishing was carried out by the method of "naked diving" ("skin
diving").
The fishing team went out to sea in a small boat.
They used a glass-bottomed tube to explore the seafloor and search for sponges.
As soon as the sponge was discovered, the diver went overboard to get it.
Today, sponge mining is a profitable business.
After all, an ordinary synthetic sponge costs only a couple of dollars, but a natural sea
sponge, hand-picked from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, will cost $30.
So why are sponges so expensive?
The fact is that collecting sponges is a dangerous job, and such risks do not at all guarantee
big profits.
And if earlier there were a lot of sponges in the Mediterranean, then nowadays they are
more and more difficult to find.
This makes an already difficult task even more difficult.
Synthetic dish sponges are known to be cheap and that is why they are so popular.
But natural sea sponges have been used for centuries.
And today they are still needed for pottery, painting and medicine to stop bleeding.
But extracting sponges from a depth of 70 meters is not so easy.
This high-quality sea sponge is mined by hand by divers not only in the Mediterranean, but
also off the coast of Florida and the Caribbean.
However, the most valuable types of sponges are found in the Mediterranean Sea.
They are quite difficult to find, it takes a lot of effort to find them.
One of the most dangerous parts of sponge collecting happens on the ascent, when divers
move from a high pressure environment to a low pressure environment too quickly.
Decompression sickness occurs.
Its symptoms are severe pain, paralysis and eventually death in severe cases.
Nitrogen builds up in a diver's body when they go deep underwater.
The body needs time to release this nitrogen before rising to the surface.
With a rapid rise, gases begin to be released in the form of bubbles into the blood of the
victim; foaming of the blood occurs, the destruction of the cell wall and blood vessels that block
the blood flow.
Apart from this biggest risk, decompression takes longer than diving.
In many ways, the time for decompression depends on the depth of the diver's dive.
For example, a diver may spend as little as 30 minutes diving to a depth of 50 meters,
but it would take about 90 minutes just to surface.
Therefore, this factor becomes decisive.
They have to collect sponges in deeper places, where it is easier to find their most valuable
species.
But a deeper dive also means the diver has a much shorter time to harvest.
Otherwise, it will take too long to recover and rest between dives.
Despite the limited time available, extracting the sponges itself is not a quick or easy
task.
Sometimes divers have to grab onto the sponge with both hands using their full strength.
To remove the sponge, you have to shake it a little from side to side.
It is important here to leave a sufficient amount of spongy substrate attached to the
seabed.
This leaves the sponge with the potential to re-grow.
Another hurdle that divers face is the number of sponges they can collect.
In shallow water, divers can pick up as many sponges as they can carry.
As a rule, a diver lifts from three to four nets with sponges to the surface, this is
about 8 kilograms.
After which he returns to the bottom to continue the search.
But there is no guarantee that the diver will find so many more sponges.
Especially today, there's a good chance they'll come back with fewer sponges than they bargained
for.
This decrease in the number of sponges is caused by several factors.
First of all, this is due to climate change.
The climate crisis is one of the main reasons for the decline in the number of sponges.
Another problem for sponge growth is environmental pollution.
Sponges used to be called "soft gold" in Greece.
They thrived in these warm waters.
This is why the Greek islands, and especially Kalymnos, have historically been the center
of sponge fishing.
But the dangerous nature of the job and the lack of sponges in the sea make it difficult
to find divers willing to do the job.
Compared to hundreds of divers in the 60s of the last century, today only about 30-40
people still dive for sponges on Kalymnos.
And this is one of the real reasons why the prices of some sponges have become so high.
With fewer people diving for sponges, these primitive animals have more time to grow.
And this means that the sponges that divers find are often larger, and therefore more
valuable.
At a dedicated processing facility, manufacturers clean up batches of mined sponges, removing
the remaining black marine sediment.
The worker then cuts each sponge one by one.
Although, of course, large sponges are more expensive.
But workers cut them, as smaller sponges are easier to clean and wash.
Therefore, they acquire a better presentation and become more in demand.
They process 5 of the most popular types of Mediterranean sponges.
These sponges are in demand for their durability and softness.
The most popular is the Fina sponge.
One 12 cm sponge of this type retails for $30.
And although sponge washcloths are no longer as popular as they used to be in the modern
world, they still continue to be produced.
For the most part, they are bought by those who are allergic to synthetic materials or
who care for their skin only with natural materials.
For these purposes, take a natural Mediterranean or Caribbean sponge.
The softest and most porous sponges are found in these seas.
Such washcloths were recognized as the most gentle and delicate, they can be used even
every day.
Before use, pour the sponge with warm water.
It will swell and acquire all the qualities necessary for washing.
Good natural sea sponges are suitable for bathing babies.
They are so soft that they do not damage the delicate baby skin.
Sea sponges are most widely used in cosmetology.
With their help, it is easy to remove makeup, they gently cleanse the skin without injuring
it.
Sponges are also very convenient for applying and removing natural cosmetic masks.
Natural sponges are good for massage, as they tone the facial muscles.
In addition, they do not cause allergies and have an antibacterial effect.
Natural sea sponges are a very useful tool for artists, no matter what material they
work with.
From ceramics to oil paints for glazes.
Artificial sponges cannot absorb water as well as natural ones.
Sea sponges allow you to evenly distribute colors, which makes it possible to use them
for various painting techniques.
For example, on a blue background, it is very easy to depict clouds with a sponge.
No two sponges are the same, so this opens up new possibilities.
Sponge allows you to create various image effects.
Despite the decline in sponge production over the past 50 years, the demand for this product
is still high.
Modern methods of biotechnology used in mariculture have shown that the most promising is the
cultivation of sea sponges by explantation.
This is when part of the sponge is cut off from the mother's body in order to grow it
under optimal conditions to the required size.
Explantation in mariculture of sponges is always carried out only in the aquatic environment,
directly on the seabed itself, where the cut fragment will grow on a leash, net or in a
special container.
Growing sponges is a simple process and does not require much special knowledge.
Why can sponges be cultivated on an industrial scale and how does this process take place?
It should be clarified that the industrial cultivation of sea sponges is associated exclusively
with their ability to regenerate tissues.
Sponges have surpassed all known multicellular animal organisms in their ability to regenerate
their bodies.
The experiments carried out showed that even pieces of a sponge rubbed through a fine-meshed
tissue, in fact, representing individual cells of the animal's body, placed in water, are
able to gather in clusters and after a while turn into full-fledged sponges.
Sponges easily regenerate damaged areas of the body - the wound heals, tightens with
a protective membrane, under which the previous structure is restored, and after a while the
damage site becomes invisible.
It is necessary to emphasize that, on an industrial scale, sponges can be
grown in the subtropical and tropical regions of the planet in the aquatic environment of
the oceans and seas through mariculture.
Mariculture or marine culture is a branch of aquaculture that is engaged in
the breeding or cultivation of marine hydrobionts - algae, molluscs, crustaceans, fish, sponges,
sea anemones, sea urchins, holothurians, starfish in the seas, estuaries, estuaries or in artificial
conditions, pools with constantly cleaned sea water.
Sponges can be successfully grown only in strictly defined areas of the World Ocean,
which have a number of favorable natural and climatic factors that contribute to the production
of high-quality raw materials in an optimal period of time.
Based on current scientific data, it should take about 2 years from the process of explanting
and fixing a fragment of a sponge in a mesh (mesh container) or on a leash to obtaining
a finished product.
There are many methods for attaching sea sponge explants to the seabed, for example,
using very efficient horizontal cable structures with transverse nylon cords.
This semi-artisanal method of growing sea sponge explants, despite its apparent primitivism,
brings good results in the growth of mariculture objects.
That's all.
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