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Science

New Zealands's Mysterious Sponge-like Creature 52

Posted by timothy from the feral-sponge dept.
Kryptonomic writes: "New Zealand's marine experts are puzzled by the parasitic sponge-like animal that could threaten NZ's aquaculture industry. Apparently the animal, which so far has not been identified, kills all other sealife by embedding itself on the victim and slowly feeding on it. The parasite also reproduces asexually and could end up dominating the ecological niche it occupies."
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New Zealands's Mysterious Sponge-like Creature More

New Zealands's Mysterious Sponge-like Creature

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  • Feral sponge??? (Score:5, Funny)

    by PD ( 9577 ) <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Sunday January 06, 2002 @12:41AM (#2792756) Homepage Journal
    Is that some kind of sponge that escaped from a kitchen sink somewhere and reverted to a life in the wild? The mind boggles...
  • It seems that it filters out and "eats" plankton. However, it doesn't directly attack more solid sealife, it simply spreads over everything and smothers it. It doesn't seem to "inject" into (say) mussels or whatever's around to assimilate nutrients from it. (read the nz herald article)

    Yeah, it seems bad for NZ sealife at the moment - man-of-war jellyfish have made their recent first appearance and a while ago there was a mysterious mussel parasite. So, it's not the first time that something wierd's turned up in the water. There was also an alge bloom a year or two back, which I don't think was ever totally explained.
  • It's not just any sponge--it's SpongeBob SquarePants!

    [*ducks*]
    • From the article:
      It has been temporarily dubbed Didemnum sp.? until it can be properly identified.

      It so new people don't even know how to spell the sponge's name!
  • This would make the topic for a great scifi novel. Just imagine:
    A new form of killer sponge infects the beautiful waters of New Zealand, killing humans and sealife alike.
    Ok, so maybe that's not the best use of the topic, but you see my point...
  • Embeds itself on the victim and then slowly feeds on it?

    I didn't know sponges even went to law school.

  • Public reactions: (Score:3, Funny)

    by tunah ( 530328 ) <sam&krayup,com> on Sunday January 06, 2002 @04:14AM (#2793207) Homepage
    Microsoft's Steve Ballmer has announced that these sponges have taken hold due NZ being filled with "GPL apologists and anti-IP maniacs".

    RMS has announced on the gnu.org site that the evils of software patents and proprietary software has kept us too busy reinventing the wheel to destroy evil sponges.

    Linus Torvalds posted on comp.os.linux.sponges:
    I couldn't care less what this evil sponge is doing. I'm just working to make my sponge the evillest it can be.

    George Bush has announced the US would be 'declaring war' on sponges. This follows similar moves on drugs, civil liberties and reckless use of frisbees.

    The unidentified evil sponge was not available for comment.

  • Fungus (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Perdo ( 151843 ) on Sunday January 06, 2002 @05:41AM (#2793311) Homepage Journal
    This is the fungus that was growing on the OUTSIDE of mir when it hit the ocean in that region. Imagine the mutation rate of a fungus in a hard radiation enviroment. Fast enough mutation to become an extremephile living on the outside of MIR. Extreme enough to survive reentery? Shure...
  • SO wouldnt YOU be wearing glves, unlike the guy in the picture?
    • reminds of a documentry I saw on Australia, where they guy was holding some small ultra-poisonious octupus like creature, with gloves, then puts it back into the tide pool, right next to his bare feet.
      Man, I would of loved for it to bite him. Not that want him to die, but it would have been damn funny.
  • This is actually a rather tough call for them. NZ has been pretty good, especially by today's weak standards, to protecting its enviornments and wildlife. The question is, what are they going to do? Try to anihilate the sponges to save their harbor's indigenous species and farms? That in itself might violate some of their statues. I'm not sure. On one hand I think its awful, and dangerous beyond any way we can measure, to start killing off a species because we think its a pest.
    • Did you even read the article?

      It is not an indigenous species. Much like the rabbits and foxes and dogs of Australia, this sponge is not native to the NZ waters. There is no tough call here. You eradicate so as to preserve the ecological balance in the harbour.
      • Or perhaps "like the rabbits and foxes and dogs of New Zealand" really. Well, perhaps not foxes and dogs, but rabbits, opossums, and feral cats are a big issue here already.

        There are other precedents (ragwort, for example) which we manage to keep in check. I don't imagine it'll be a huge problem, just one more long-term nusance we could've lived without!

        • I don't imagine it'll be a huge problem, just one more long-term nusance we could've lived without!

          Just like deer used to be.

          Yep, they were considered a huge pest a few decades ago. Now it's not at all difficult to find a 6 metre fence to keep the damn things inside.
      • Life isn't indigenous anywhere. An "indigenous" form is merely one that reached the landmass before humans did. All of natural history shows a pattern of "non-indigenous" species invading other islands and continents. For example, the fauna exchanges and mass extinctions of South American marsupials as a result of an ice age recession of sea levels linking South America to North America.

        When you hear someone advocating the extermination of an "invader" to protect "indigenous species" and a local "ecological balance", you are hearing someone who is either ignorant (often willfully) of ecology, or believes that humans can manage the ecosystem better than nature can.

        Which are you?

        • Not sure if I agree with you, especialy in regard to human-introduced species. but I think in the case of this article, your point is moot. they don't want to get rid of the sponge to save the ecology so much as they want to pretect their seafood industry. I am sure if there were indigenous sea creatures that were threatening their oyster farms they would be thinking of killing them off as well.

  • ... this attribute of the creature is dangerous to ecology
    • No, black and green fly, various bacteria and other asexually reproducing organisms have been around far longer than mankind has.

      There's pro's and cons to asexual reproduction. On the one hand, you reproduce more quickly (some black fly are even born pregnant!), on the other a disease can swing through and get all of your sibblings because you are genetic clones.

      All known organisms except bacteria do both asexual and sexual reproduction. There seems to be limits to how many generations purely asexual reproduction can occur before the damage kills. Not quite sure how bacteria deal with this, but probably their genome is shorter and they have extensive genetic repair mechanisms and possibly use some DNA swapping, plus they reproduce really fast...
      • All known organisms except bacteria do both asexual and sexual reproduction.

        Not true. Most of the lower protozoa (things like Euglena) don't have sexual reproduction, and some animals and plants have secondarily lost it, like certain rotifers. Plus, even among organisms which do have sexual reproduction, many can reproduce asexually indefinitely.

        • >Not true. Most of the lower protozoa (things like Euglena) don't have sexual reproduction, and some
          >animals and plants have secondarily lost it, like certain rotifers.

          Not sure which animals have lost this; but protozoa and rotifers.

          >Plus, even among organisms which do have sexual reproduction, many can reproduce asexually indefinitely.

          There is some question over this apparently. How many generations do you allow the asexual reproduction to run before declaring that they can do so indefinitely? 30? 100? 1000? Why that number?
      • All known organisms except bacteria do both asexual and sexual reproduction.

        Huh? When was the last time a human (or other vertebrate) reproduced asexually? I realize that a lot of /. readers try, but it never works.

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