Study of museum specimen Spongilla(Porifera)
Habit and Habitat of the Spongilla:
A colonial sponge is called Spongilla. It is widely distributed in ponds, lakes, and slow-moving streams, where it grows on submerged plants and sticks.
Comments on Spongilla:
1. The most well-known freshwater sponge is arguably the spongeilla.
2. Due to the presence of zoochlorellae, the spongilla colony is heavily branched and displays a range of green colors.
3. The body wall is made up of multiple osculates and a very thin dermal membrane containing dermal holes called ostia.
4. There is a rhagon type canal system.
5. The skeleton is made up of siliceous spicules that are implanted in the spongin as a network of smooth and spiny big and tiny areas.
6. Reproduction both asexual and sexual. Asexual reproduction by gemmules.
Economic Importance:
- They are employed in the manufacture of medications.
- They serve as a shelter that protects animals.
- For washing, polishing, and other purposes, dried fibrous/Skeleton is used.
Diagram of Spongilla(Porifera)
Study of museum specimen Sycon(Porifera):
Distribution:
The North Atlantic coasts are home to an abundance of sycon, which is widely spread.
Habit and Habitat:
Sycon is a small, solitary or colonial marine sponge. It is a branching solitary or colonial marine sponge found attached to rocks and other substrate in shallow water.
Comments:
1. Sponge is the popular name for sycon.
2. The sycon’s body is a thin, vase-shaped cylinder with a diameter of 5 to 6 mm and a length of 20 to 30 mm.
2. Numerous pores on the body’s surface are referred to as ostia.
3. Only the radial canal is lined with choanocytes, or flagellated cells.
4. The Canal System is syconoid in nature.
5. It can reproduce asexually as well as sexually. Budding and regeneration are two methods of asexual reproduction. The sexual reproduction process uses sperm and ova.
6. It has a hermaphrodite genus.
7. The body is made up of the spongocoel’s inner, flattened epithelium, middle mesenchymal tissue, and outside epithelium.
Economic Importance:
Sycons are significant because they provide food for marine life, provide habitat for that life, and can injure sessile organisms and underwater formations.
Study of permanent slide(Porifera) T.S. of sycon:
1. Ectoderm, mesenchyme, and endoderm make up the body wall, which encloses the radial and incurrent canals.
2. The body’s surface and internal canals are entirely covered in ectoderm. It is made up of pinacocytes.
3. Calcareous spicules, amoebytes, collencytes, and archaeocytes make up the gelatinous layer known as mesenchyme.
4. A single layer of flagellated collar cells, also known as choanocytes, makes up the endoderm. Radial canals are lined with it.
5. An apopyle in each radial canal allows access to the spongocoel, a sizable central cavity.
6. A syconoid form of canal system.Flat epithelium lines the spongocoel, or sponge.
8. Radial canals use prosopyles to connect with the wrong canals.
Diagram of Sycon(Porifera):
