會打“打噴嚏”的深海海綿

科學(xué)家拍到深海海綿“打噴嚏”

You probably don’t think you have much in common with the creatures that inhabit the floor of the deep sea. Most of the animals that endure the intense pressure and lack of sunlight are, well, downright strange. Sea sponges are one such creature and they come in many shapes and sizes. As surprising as it seems, one particular variety of sea sponge, called a glass sponge, shares something in common with humans and many terrestrial animals: It sneezes.

你可能不認(rèn)為你和海底生物有什么共同之處。大多數(shù)承受著巨大壓力和缺乏陽光的動物都是非常奇怪的。海海綿就是這樣一種生物，它們有各種各樣的形狀和大小。令人驚訝的是，有一種特殊的海綿，叫做玻璃海綿，它與人類和許多陸生動物有一個共同之處:它會打噴嚏。

The “sneeze” itself isn’t particularly dramatic, but it’s certainly noticeable. It’s also pretty weird. As you can see in the video below, the sponge, which consists of a stalk with a wine-glass-like white “cup” on the end, can be seen expanding and contracting. At first, scientists were puzzled by the odd behavior but eventually were able to come up with a possible explanation.

“打噴嚏”本身并不特別引人注目，但肯定是值得注意的。這也很奇怪。正如你在下面的視頻中看到的，這個海綿，由一個末端有一個葡萄酒杯狀的白色“杯”的柄組成，可以看到它在擴(kuò)張和收縮。起初，科學(xué)家們對這種奇怪的行為感到困惑，但最終還是找到了一種可能的解釋。

“There is precedent for sponges contracting and expanding,” Amanda Kahn, co-author of the research, said in a statement. “Basically, there’s an ‘ahh‘ when the sponge expands and the ‘-choo’ when it contracts those canals.”

這項(xiàng)研究的合著者阿曼達(dá)·卡恩在一份聲明中說：“海綿收縮和擴(kuò)張是有先例的。“基本上，海綿膨脹時會發(fā)出‘啊’聲，收縮時會發(fā)出‘嘀嗒’聲。”

Sea sponges are filter feeders, meaning that they snag whatever tiny particles float by as water flows around and through them. However, not everything that gets caught up in the sponge is edible and without a mechanism to expel unwanted material, the sponge would be far less efficient at getting the nutrients it needs.

海綿是濾食者，也就是說，當(dāng)水在它們周圍流過時，它們會截住任何漂浮的微小顆粒。然而，并不是所有被困在海綿里的東西都是可食用的，如果沒有排出不需要物質(zhì)的機(jī)制，海綿獲得所需營養(yǎng)的效率會低得多。

This “sneezing” behavior is thought to be the sponge’s natural reaction to unwanted material, pushing out irritating bits that get caught before relaxing again and resuming their normal feeding behavior. Each sneeze can last as little as an hour or as long as several weeks. In the time-lapse images, they appear short, but these actions take a while for the tiny sponges.

這種“打噴嚏”的行為就是海綿對不需要的物質(zhì)的自然反應(yīng)，在再次放松和恢復(fù)正常的進(jìn)食行為之前，把被抓住的沒用的部分排出。每個噴嚏可以持續(xù)一個小時或數(shù)周。在延時拍攝的照片中，它們看起來很短，但這些動作對微小的海綿來說需要一段時間。