And now we are coming in on a magnificent glass sponge.
So you see the body of the sponge, which looks like a vase on top,
and it produces this long stalk of glass fibers, silica fibers, that penetrate into the substrate and anchor it.
And here along the stalk, we have a whole community of gooseneck barnacles and brittle stars.
And, oh, also you can see there are little polyps sticking out of the sponge body --
those are colonial anemones. Those are zoanthids.
This is an amazing community.
Extraordinary when you think that, if you release a larvae into the water,
you release millions of larvae into the water,
what are the odds that any one of them will find a home in such a relatively barren environment.