Sponge · glass sponge

Bird’s nest sponge

Pheronema carpenteri

PacificAtlanticIndianSouthernArctic A single ocean

Depth

Mostly 800 to 1,350 m, from about 500 to 1,600 m

Size

Nest-shaped sponge resting on the mud

Diet

Organic particles filtered from the water

Zone

The sea floor · 200 – 3,500 m

Key facts

• Its skeleton is made of fine glass needles, called spicules.
• It forms true sponge fields, sometimes with more than one sponge per square meter.
• Its fallen spicules cover the mud. This mat shelters up to ten times more small animals than elsewhere.
• It lives only in the Northeast Atlantic and the Mediterranean, from Iceland to the Azores and Morocco.

Verified sources

1. MarLIN : Pheronema carpenteri field on Atlantic lower bathyal mud
2. Rice, Thurston & New 1990 : Dense aggregations of Pheronema carpenteri
3. Bett & Rice 1992 : effet des tapis de spicules sur la faune
4. Frontiers in Marine Science 2024 : agrégations de Pheronema carpenteri aux Açores

In the game: To observe

In the same zone

Pink abyssal sea cucumberAmperima rosea Scaly-foot gastropodChrysomallon squamiferum Indian Ocean vent shrimpRimicaris kairei Java giant isopodBathynomus raksasa Seafarer’s ghost sharkChimaera willwatchi Coral Seamount blue sea cucumberPannychia taylorae