Vocabulary
- Pinacocyte: thin flat cells that line the outer surface of a sponge.
- Porocytes: are specialized pinacocytes that regulate water.
- Mesohyl: jelly like layer below pinacocytes which contains wandering amoeboid cells.
- Choanocytes: are cells that are flagellated and posses a collar-like ring of microvilli that surrounds a flagellum. Create water currents and filter food.
- Spicules: microscopic needle-like spikes within a sponge's skeleton.
- Spongin: fibrous protein made of collagen.
- Ascon: simplest and least common sponge body from. Vase-like and have choanocytes lining the spongocoel.
- Sycon: more complex than ascon sponges but are simpler than leucon sponges. have choanocytes lining radial canals.
- Leucon: body form with an extensively branched canal system, these canal lead to chambers that are lined by choanocytes.
- Mesenchyme Cells: amoeboid cells that lay within the mesohyl. Specialized for reproduction, secreting skeletal elemnts, transporting and storing food, and forming contractile rings around openings in the sponge wall.
- Gemmules: resistant buds within sponges that are a response to hostile environments.
- Spongocoel: large chamber within the sponge.
- Osculum: large opening at the top of a sponge where water exists.
- Turbidity: haziness of a fluid, usually caused by the large presence of individual particles.
- Amoeboid Cells: irregularly shaped single cell life forms that can move about freely.
- Monoecious: individual organisms that contain both eggs and sperm.
- Gemmule: resistant capsule formed from freshwater and marine sponges, that contain masses of amoeboid cells.
- Micropyle: tiny opening in a gemmule from which amoeboid cells are released.