sponges

• sponges

59:1.18The ma­rine life was much alike the world over and con­sisted of the sea­weeds, one-celled or­gan­isms, sim­ple sponges, trilo­bites, and other crus­taceans—shrimps, crabs, and lob­sters. Three thou­sand va­ri­eties of bra­chiopods ap­peared at the close of this pe­riod, only two hun­dred of which have sur­vived. These an­i­mals rep­re­sent a va­ri­ety of early life which has come down to the pres­ent time prac­ti­cally un­changed.

• sponges

59:2.11Lime-se­cret­ing al­gae were wide­spread. There ex­isted thou­sands of species of the early an­ces­tors of the corals. Sea worms were abun­dant, and there were many va­ri­eties of jel­ly­fish which have since be­come ex­tinct. Corals and the later types of sponges evolved. The ceph­a­lop­ods were well de­vel­oped, and they have sur­vived as the mod­ern pearly nau­tilus, oc­to­pus, cut­tle­fish, and squid.

• sponges

59:3.7The oceanic cli­mate re­mained mild and uni­form, and the warm seas bathed the shores of the po­lar lands. Bra­chio­pod and other ma­rine-life fos­sils may be found in these de­posits right up to the North Pole. Gas­tropods, bra­chiopods, sponges, and reef-mak­ing corals con­tin­ued to in­crease.

• sponges

60:2.8The re­turn of the seas im­proved the weather. Corals spread to Eu­ro­pean wa­ters, tes­ti­fy­ing that the cli­mate was still mild and even, but they never again ap­peared in the slowly cool­ing po­lar seas. The ma­rine life of these times im­proved and de­vel­oped greatly, es­pe­cially in Eu­ro­pean wa­ters. Both corals and crinoids tem­porar­ily ap­peared in larger num­bers than here­to­fore, but the am­monites dom­i­nated the in­ver­te­brate life of the oceans, their av­er­age size rang­ing from three to four inches, though one species at­tained a di­am­e­ter of eight feet. Sponges were ev­ery­where, and both cut­tle­fish and oys­ters con­tin­ued to evolve.

58:7.2Fos­sils of this era yield al­gae, coral­like plants, prim­i­tive Pro­to­zoa, and spon­ge­like tran­si­tion or­gan­isms. But the ab­sence of such fos­sils in the early rock lay­ers does not nec­es­sar­ily prove that liv­ing things were not else­where in ex­is­tence at the time of their de­po­si­tion. Life was sparse through­out these early times and only slowly made its way over the face of the earth.

65:2.2Very few species of the early types of ma­rine veg­e­ta­tion that par­tic­i­pated in those ep­ochal changes which re­sulted in the an­i­mallike bor­der­land or­gan­isms are in ex­is­tence to­day. The sponges are the sur­vivors of one of these early mid­way types, those or­gan­isms through which the grad­ual tran­si­tion from the veg­etable to the an­i­mal took place. These early tran­si­tion forms, while not iden­ti­cal with mod­ern sponges, were much like them; they were true bor­der­line or­gan­isms—nei­ther veg­etable nor an­i­mal—but they even­tu­ally led to the de­vel­op­ment of the true an­i­mal forms of life.

187:3.5When Je­sus saw them eat and drink, he looked down upon them and said, “I thirst.” When the cap­tain of the guard heard Je­sus say, “I thirst,” he took some of the wine from his bot­tle and, putting the sat­u­rated sponge stop­per upon the end of a javelin, raised it to Je­sus so that he could moisten his parched lips.