Calcareous sponges - Scientific observation print - Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur

Reproduction engraving of: Calcareous sponges

Original title Calcispongiae - Kalkschwämme

Poster of Ascandra - Metazoa of the class Sponges (Class Calcareous Sponges)

Illustration from the book Kunstformen der Natur, which is a collection of artistic lithographs of natural sciences published by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel between 1899 and 1904.

This naturalistic illustration is part of an overall style inspired by Ernst Haeckel, which greatly influenced the emerging Art Nouveau movement at the beginning of the ^20th century. This work, illustrating the impressive beauty and great diversity of the biological world, was complemented by a certain amount of scientific information, some excerpts of which are reproduced below.

This information is over 120 years old and some of it may be outdated!

Scientific classification:

 Phylum of Sponges (Spongiae)
Class of Calcareous Sponges (Calcarea or Calcispongiae)

Scientific notice (extract) accompanying the poster print of Calcispongiae - Calcareous sponges :

Calcareous sponges (living mainly on the sea floor) are distinguished from other sponges by the fact that they deposit needles of calcium carbonate in their tissue. The simplest forms of this class are small, bladder-like globules (Olynthus); usually, they form small clusters or colonies composed of many of these bubble-like globules. The external form and internal structure of calcareous sponges are often very delicate; their size is usually a few millimeters, rarely a few centimeters. The species shown on this plate, enlarged, belong to two different orders, the Ascona and the Sycona. The Ascona (tube or tube-shaped sponges, Fig. 1-3) are slender tubes with a porous wall supported by three- or four-rayed (sometimes simple) radial canals. Sometimes (like isolated Ascona, similar to individual forms such as Olynthus, Fig. 10), sometimes they form small colonies or delicate, bush-like clusters of many units (Fig. 13). Sycona (strobile- or cone-shaped sponges, Fig. 4-13) are double-walled bodies, composed of many Ascon units grouped regularly around the central cavity of a mother animal, similar to the arrangement of flower buds around a pine cone (Figs. 8, 13). In all calcareous sponges, seawater enters with the food through fine surface openings (Fig. 10), then exits through a larger orifice (osculum).

Species present on the naturalist board of Calcareous sponges - Ascandra :

• Ascandra pinus
• Ascandra sertularia
• Ascilla gracilis
• Syculmis synapta
• Sycurus primitivus
• Sycodendron ampulla
• Sycarium elegans
• Sycortis quadrangulata
• Sycandra compressa
• Sycarium elegans
• Sycaltis perforata
• Sycetta strobilus