Common bath sponge (Spongia officinalis) museum specimen.

Common bath sponge (Spongia officinalis) specimen at the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe.

Creator: H. Zell via Wikimedia Commons

Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0

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Species record

Common Bath Sponge

Spongia officinalis

Explore the Common Bath Sponge (Spongia officinalis) species record in The Ark Is Earth, including classification, habitat, distribution, conservation information, and sources.

Summary

The Common Bath Sponge (Spongia officinalis) is a marine sponge of the Mediterranean and nearby eastern Atlantic. It lives on rocky and other hard seabeds in shallow water, filters food from the surrounding water, and has a supporting network of spongin fibres. Its fibrous body has long been collected for use as a natural bath sponge.

Classification in this archive

  1. Kingdom: Animals
  2. Phylum: Sponges
  3. Class: Demosponges
  4. Order: Dictyoceratida
  5. Family: Spongiidae
  6. Genus: Spongia

Habitat and distribution

Selected documented locations — not a complete species range.

Habitat
Mediterranean rocky seabeds, submerged rocky cliffs, shallow subtidal waters
Selected regions
Africa, Europe

Conservation status

Conservation status not recorded.

Did you know?

  • Its internal support is a network of spongin fibres rather than a hard skeleton.

Sources and attribution