Venus' Flower Basket

deep ocean · glass sponge · incredible structure

Lives in darkness. Venus' flower baskets live more than half a mile down in the Pacific Ocean, where it's so deep that sunlight never reaches them.

Made of glass. Their skeleton is built from silica, the same stuff that makes glass, arranged in an intricate lattice pattern that looks like a delicate vase.

Better than human-made stuff. Scientists study these sponges because their glass structure has optical and mechanical properties that are in some ways superior to materials we can make in factories.

Filters the water. Like all sponges, Venus' flower baskets are filter feeders that eat plankton and marine snow by pulling water through their body.

A big mystery. Not much is known about how they reproduce, though scientists think their unique hollow structure probably plays an important role in making babies.