The work was published in Current Biology on Wednesday. de Goeij and colleagues have found that sponges appear to sneeze as a form of self-cleaning, releasing waste particles in mucous through their ostia. For years, scientists have known that sponges can regulate their water flow with a many-minutes-long body contraction - i.e., a “sneeze” - but now, Dr. Those “little mouths” are called ostia, and the openings where water flows out are oscula. “A sponge is basically an animal that has a lot of little mouths and one, or several, larger outflow openings,” said Dr. As filter feeders, sponges play a crucial role in their aquatic ecosystems, drawing in water filled with varied organic matter, processing it and releasing it as waste on which organisms like snails, brittle stars and tube worms feed. “It’s the most successful animal that I know of, because it’s so old, and it’s everywhere,” said Jasper de Goeij, a marine ecologist at the University of Amsterdam. The sponge has been around for at least 600 million years. In fact, sneezing doesn’t even require a nervous system, let alone a nose, and dates back to some of the first multicellular animals: sponges. Maybe you’ve seen your dog or cat do it, or watched a YouTube video of a giraffe sneezing on an unsuspecting toddler at the zoo. NEW YORK: Sneezing is far from a uniquely human behavior.
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