Show Us Your Sponges

[JimB88]

Not too many people pay much attention to one of the earliest forms of multi-cellular life on this planet - unless its time to wash the car!

So lets give em' some love..

I'll start with an example from the Ordovician - Dystactospongia...

I had originally thought this was a bryo, but after examining it with a loupe I realized it was a sponge.

[LanceH]

Roz found this from the Pennsylvanian deposits in North Texas:

Edited September 24, 2010 by LanceHall

[frozen_turkey]

On one can beat mine.

its a vary rare Astraeospongia meniscus (found it myself!) from linn county, iowa middle devonian period.

Edited September 28, 2010 by frozen_turkey

[nala]

Hello,this is few exemples of cretaceous French sponges:

Siphonia jerea Santonian Touraine France

Exanthesis méandrina Sponge Cénomanian Escalles and Coelocorypha Santonian Touraine

Rhysospongia pictonica Senonian Touraine France

[thair]

From Penn. Coleman Co. central Texas.

[LanceH]

"Girtyocoelia beedi" sponges:

Edited September 24, 2010 by LanceHall

[Auspex]

Cool thread; keep 'em coming!

[ebrocklds]

cambrian sponges from utah. first 3 pics Chanceloria pentactica 4th pic unsure.

Brock

[glacialerratic]

Don't know the ID on this one. I picked it up this past spring out of a pile of quarry rock that will eventually become rip-rap along the shore of Betsie Lake, a natural harbor on Lake MI. The rock is Devonian.

Edited September 28, 2010 by michigantim

[Fossildude19]

Devonian sponge Hindia sphaeroidalis from the Kalkberg Fm. Scoharie, NY.

(The spheroidal one in the middle!)

[frozen_turkey]

From Penn. Coleman Co. central Texas.

That is awesome but totaly weired that the same time.

[Ordovician_Odyssey]

this is honeycomb coral....not sure if its a sponge though...

found it on highway 41, eganville ontario, on a roadcut, in an ordovician deposite.

[kreidefossil]

Hey,

after a long time another post by me:

The Sponge (maybe Chonella or Seliscothon) was found in 2004.

Age: Upper Cenomanian Sediments nearby Dresden (Saxony, Germany) - part of the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin (BCB)

[Wrangellian]

I'm not sure if these are sponges - one guy told me he was skeptical, that they were just plants, but they sure look like the crosshatched structure of a Hexactinellid to me! And the plant material from this site all has at least a thin film of carbon (coal) in it, while these have none. If they are sponges, they are the first examples I know of from the Cretaceous of Vancouver Island.

Maybe I'll post this in the ID section too.. If anybody has a strong opinion one way or the other I'd appreciate hearing it.

I have others I can put up when I get pics of them.

[Wrangellian]

Don't know the ID on this one. I picked it up this past spring out of a pile of quarry rock that will eventually become rip-rap along the shore of Betsie Lake, a natural harbor on Lake MI. The rock is Devonian.

Nice specimen, Looks like you have a brachiopod, sponge and maybe a bryozoan all in one! (I'm pretty sure there is a type of sponge with 6-rayed spicules, tho I can't name it offhand).

Eric

[Wrangellian]

cambrian sponges from utah. first 3 pics Chanceloria pentactica 4th pic unsure.

Brock

NICE! Did you find these yourself?

(Care to trade one of those for a few Cretaceous ammonites or something? )

The 4th pic looks to me like Chancelloria too.

NOTE: According to 'The Fossils of the Burgess Shale', Chancelloria is not a sponge, but a 'scleritome-bearing animal' (extinct group). So it qualifies as a Cambrian oddball.. that's even cooler than a sponge if you ask me.

Eric

[piranha]

Here is my fav sponge bob:

Astraeospongia sp. (7cm)

Middle Devonian (Eifelian)

Üxheim, Germany

[Auspex]

Here is my fav sponge bob:

Astraeospongia sp. (7cm)

Middle Devonian (Eifelian)

Üxheim, Germany

Got spicules?

That's a beaut!

[Wrangellian]

Here's a Diagoniella sp. from the Marjum Fmtn, Millard Co, Utah, or so I was told. When I received it I was a little disappointed that there was no appreciable detail visible on it than what I could see in the pic, but I was reassured that it is what it was stated to be. It's got the right silhouette, at least! (Does anyone know if this can be pinned down to a more specific location than 'Millard Co.'?)

[MikeR]

Here is something that you don't see every day: Cenozoic sponges and two different species on the same matrix piece.

On the left Rigadrella trabecula Rigby, 1881 and on the right Ophiraphidites infundibuliformis Schrammenn, 1899 from the Comfort Member of the Castle Hayne Formation, Middle Eocene, New Hanover County, North Carolina.

[piranha]

Here is something that you don't see every day: Cenozoic sponges and two different species on the same matrix piece.

On the left Rigadrella trabecula Rigby, 1881 and on the right Ophiraphidites infundibuliformis Schrammenn, 1899 from the Comfort Member of the Castle Hayne Formation, Middle Eocene, New Hanover County, North Carolina.

Great fossil! I'm confused however with regard to the attribution of Rigadrella. The treatise volume of Porifera does not list it as a valid genus. The closest I found in name is Rigbyella and these are described from the Cambrian of Iran and Texas. Ophiraphidites is described in the literature from Cretaceous deposits exclusively which leads to a different conclusion on this fossil.

Prof. Rigby would be the first to admit to being an oldtimer these days but he was in his heyday in 1981 not 1881 - that's the most obvious problem with the attribution. Can you shed any light on how your fossil was evaluated? The structure appears tabulate - is it possible this is a coral?

[Scott S.]

Here's a few sponge holdfasts from the Warsaw Fm. St. Louis. Any help on a genus ID would be appreciated.

[piranha]

Here's a few sponge holdfasts from the Warsaw Fm. St. Louis. Any help on a genus ID would be appreciated.

Belemnospongia (?) Order and Family UNCERTAIN

Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology: Part E, Porifera Revised

Discoidal, consisting of long oxeas radiating from single center and more or less grouped in fascicles. [Although it is possible that this is a root tuft; its consistently circular outline and apparent lack of attachment to another part of a sponge suggest that it represents the entire sponge. The lateral connections between spicules described by ULRICH may be diagenetic silica.]

B.fascicularis - Burlington Limestone, Osagian [sic, recte Osagean] Burlington, Iowa

Edited December 2, 2010 by piranha

[Wrangellian]

Over at http://inyo.110mb.com/dv/poletaarch.htm I have two images of branching archeocyathids (they look kinda like miniature examples of a Saguaro cactus in the rocks...), Class Irregularia, I collected several years ago from the Lower Cambrian Poleta Formation, California. Archeocyathids are an extinct variety of calcareous sponge.

Interesting pieces Inyo. There's something to put on my 'got to get' list - Archeocyathids. Are they particularly hard to get? I don't live in an Archeo. area.

[grampa dino]

This is the only sponges I've got, i"m still looking