Difference Between Sponges and Cnidarians

These organisms show a simple organization. Sponges have multiple cell types that are geared toward executing various metabolic functions. Cnidarians have outer and inner tissue layers sandwiching a noncellular mesoglea. Cnidarians possess a well-formed digestive system and carry out extracellular digestion.

1. How are sponges and cnidarians different?
2. What is the difference between Cnidaria and porifera?
3. Why are sponges and cnidarians considered animals?
4. What are the ecological roles of sponges and cnidarians?
5. Do sponges have a complete digestive system?
6. Do sponges have a nervous system?
7. Can sponges move?
8. Can sponges reproduce sexually?
9. What do sponges do that cnidarians dont?
10. How is being hermaphroditic an advantage to sponges?
11. Do cnidarians have a brain?
12. Do all sponges have Choanocytes?

How are sponges and cnidarians different?

Sponges vs Cnidarians

One interesting difference between sponges and cnidarians is that sponges lack tissue while cnidarians have tissues but not the organ systems. Sponges and Cnidarians are very primitive acoelomic invertebrates with very simple body structures. Both organisms are found in aquatic ecosystems.

What is the difference between Cnidaria and porifera?

Porifera do not have any form of nervous system but their individual cells have the ability to sense and react to stimuli in the environment. Cnidaria have simple nervous system called a nerve net. These nerve cells react to the presence of food and danger for the purposes of feeding and protection.

Why are sponges and cnidarians considered animals?

The sponges and the cnidarians represent the simplest of animals. Sponges appear to represent an early stage of multicellularity in the animal clade. Although they have specialized cells for particular functions, they lack true tissues in which specialized cells are organized into functional groups.

What are the ecological roles of sponges and cnidarians?

Sponges sway to collect particles. Cnidarians use tentacles to sting their prey.

Do sponges have a complete digestive system?

Lacking a true digestive system, sponges depend on the intracellular digestive processes of their choanocytes for their energy intake. The limit of this type of digestion is that food particles must be smaller than individual cells.

Do sponges have a nervous system?

Sponges are among the most primitive of all animals. They are immobile, and live by filtering detritus from the water. They have no brains or, for that matter, any neurons, organs or even tissues.

Can sponges move?

Movement. Although adult sponges are fundamentally sessile animals, some marine and freshwater species can move across the sea bed at speeds of 1–4 mm (0.039–0.157 in) per day, as a result of amoeba-like movements of pinacocytes and other cells.

Can sponges reproduce sexually?

Sponges reproduce by both asexual and sexual means. ... Once the larvae are in the water column they settle and develop into juvenile sponges. Sponges that reproduce asexually produce buds or, more often, gemmules, which are packets of several cells of various types inside a protective covering.

What do sponges do that cnidarians dont?

Sponges have specialized cells and an endoskeleton, but they lack tissues and body symmetry. Many live on coral reefs and have symbiotic relationships with other reef species. Cnidarians are aquatic invertebrates in Phylum Cnidaria. ... All cnidarians have nematocysts, and many are bioluminescent.

How is being hermaphroditic an advantage to sponges?

How is being hermaphroditic an advantage to sponges? They produce both male and female gametes and are both sexual and asexual. Describe asexual reproduction in sponges by budding. ... When sponges produce both male and female gametes are formed when amebocytes divide by mitosis.

Do cnidarians have a brain?

Cnidaria do not have a brain or groups of nerve cells ("ganglia"). The nervous system is a decentralized network ('nerve net'), with one or two nets present. They do not have a head, but they have a mouth, surrounded by a crown of tentacles. The tentacles are covered with stinging cells (nematocysts).

Do all sponges have Choanocytes?

Choanocytes (“collar cells”) are present at various locations, depending on the type of sponge, but they always line the inner portions of some space through which water flows (the spongocoel in simple sponges, canals within the body wall in more complex sponges, and chambers scattered throughout the body in the most ...