Castle Bank sponges - mission impossible?

The Castle Bank Biota contains rather a lot of sponges. Some might say too many. Especially if they were the poor fool who had to deal with them. Even working out how many species there are is a serious challenge, and the process is messy and complicated. It also involves a lot of little boxes. Despite the challenges, though, and the early stage of the research, some fascinating details can already be teased out of them all, including ones that answer a bit more of that mystery from the previous episode... when did the modern hexactinellids diversify? Previous video on the Anji rossellids:    • The Anji Biota: the secret history of glas...   A couple of papers on Castle Bank sponges published (open access) so far: Choiaella hexactinophora: https://scholar.archive.org/work/vb63... Teganium avalonensis: https://palaeo-electronica.org/conten... ...and one that's not open access: Nectocollare zakdoueli: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science... Presented by Drs. Joe Botting and Lucy Muir, independent palaeontologists and Honorary Research Fellows at the National Museum Wales. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Channel Membership: to support the channel for £3.99 per month, please investigate the 'join' button underneath the video. You can expect 2-3 extra videos per month, showing current research, related mainly to the Ordovician Castle Bank Biota.