New Species Looks Like a Harp and Eats Meat

Harp Sponge

Be the first in your classroom to ask, "What looks like a harp, lives in the ocean and eats meat?"

When the other kids look at you like you might be a clown fish, you can print out this photo and answer your own question, "It's a harp sponge,  a deadly predator, that lives almost 2-miles (3.5 kilometers) deep off of the California coast."

And you might even stump your teacher with this question because the harp sponge is a newly discovered sea creature discovered by Monterey Bay Research Aquarium Institute.  One of the first persons to see this sponge said,  "We were just amazed. No one had ever seen this animal with their own eyes before."

 The harp sponge is a "new species," says the Monterey Bay Research Aquarium Institute.  

What kind of food does this new species eat? Crustaceans--water animals. Crustaceans can be as tiny as lice, and as large as a lobster.   The harp sponge doesn't exactly have a mouth, but uses its "velcro-like barbed hooks  that cover the sponge's branching limbs, snaring crustaceans as they are swept into its branches by deep-sea currents.Once the harp sponge has its meal, it envelops the animal in a thin membrane, and then slowly begins to digest its prey."

While this new video uses many big scientific words, it is the first published film of this new species that looks like a harp, lives in the ocean, and eats meat.