'My heart skipped a beat when I saw it in Singapore waters this year,' Mr.

Sponge expert Lim Swee Cheng, author of the book A Guide to Sponges of Singapore, was called in to identify the two animals as members of the long-lost species. Unlike other sponges found in Singapore waters, the Neptune's cup sponge felt firm and leathery.' Writing for My Green Space, the newsletter of Singapore's National Parks Board, Tun and fellow biologist Eugene Goh said the sponges were 'pale yellow to white, and resembled shallow bowls standing on robust stalks.

'When we came across the sponge, we knew immediately that this was something very different,' marine biologist Karenne Tun said in a prepared release from DHI. A second sponge was found 50 meters away. The first specimen was found in March by biologists with the environmental engineering firm DHI Water & Environment (S) Pte Ltd. The species was then thought to be extinct.īut in the 1990s, a few dead Neptune's cup sponges turned near Australia, giving researchers hope that they might find these massive Porifera again in the oceans around Singapore.Īnd now that hope has been met: Two living Neptune's cup sponges have been found near Singapore's St. The last time living sponges were seen was 1908, when collectors found some in West Java, Indonesia. But their size made them valuable to collectors around the world and they were overharvested until they disappeared from Singapore in the 1870s. More than 100 years after it was last seen, the giant Neptune's cup sponge ( Cliona patera) has been rediscovered off the coast of southern Singapore.įirst discovered in 1822, the sponges grew so large-a meter or more in both height and diameter-that their cup-like structures were sometimes used as tubs for babies.

Does young sponge move