Sis forSea Sponge
Scientific name: phylum: porifera
A sponge is an animal that lives in the sea whose body is made up of lots of holes. Most sea sponges have hard skeletons, and the holes are for filtering food out of the water and so they can breathe.
Some species of sponge have soft skeletons and people used to catch them to use them for cleaning and packaging, but there are now almost none left. Today, sponges found around the house are made by people, and are not animals caught in the sea.
A modern day sponge is made from a kind of plastic that has been filled with bubbles while it is still liquid. The result is that sponges are soft and full of small holes. Sponges are great for cleaning things with, and because of the holes they are very good at soaking up spilled liquids.
Before modern sponges were invented, people used to use sea sponge skeletons as cleaning sponges.