If you imagine the earliest animals on Earth, you might picture something simple but sturdy. Maybe a sponge-like creature ...

A rare chemical indicator suggests sponges may have arrived as the first animals on Earth. A sterol core is primarily composed of four fused carbon rings, along with carbon side chains and other ...

For almost two decades, scientists have debated whether sponges or comb jellies are the first animal lineage. Now some are ...

Something had to diverge from the trunk eventually.

Studies looking at how sponges have evolved on a molecular level have suggested that spicules should be present over 700 million years ago. However, another of our Scientific Associates Dr Ana Riesgo ...

A team of scientists digging up some of the Earth’s oldest rocks has uncovered new chemical evidence that Earth’s first animals were likely ancestors of the modern sea sponge. The discovery relies on ...

SpongeBob SquarePants and his starfish best friend, Patrick Star, aren’t such cartoonish creatures after all. According to an image taken by a marine biologist doing remote deep-sea exploration this ...

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Wild dolphins use sea sponges as tools to hunt safely, revealing how animal culture survives despite hidden sensory costs.