• Sponges are among the oldest animals – discovered about 500 million years ago.
• Water flows in the bottom of a sponge and out the top.
•  Living sponges are covered in a black coat covering.
• Sponges have no tissue or organs. Nor any mouth or gut.
• Some animals use sponges as shelter.
• Sponges drink 64 glasses of water daily.
• The smallest sponge ever discovered – less then an inch long
• One of the first drugs for treating cancer, cytosine arabinoside, was isolated from a sponge.·        
• Diving for sponges is prohibited in the clear shallow waters of the Florida Keys.

• Once, there was a sponge found with more than 16,000 species in it.

• Sponges are remarkable pumping 'machines.' In general, considering the different types of sponges there are, sponges can pump 10,000 times their own size (volume) in water in one day. A sponge the size of a gallon milk container could pump enough water to fill a residential small size swimming pool within one day.

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