Thursday, July 23, 2009

The Sponge Guide is Newly Published and Available

For those Bonaire snorkelers and divers who want to be able to identify every marine organism they encounter, The Sponge Guide will definitely assist with the identification of the more difficult world of sponges.

The guide is a web-based, fully searchable pictorial guide to Caribbean sponges, and can be found by clicking here. 

This guide is the result of several years of work by taxonomist Sven Zea, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, by database and web-design wizard Tim Henkel, formerly a PhD student at UNCW and now a postdoc at Murray State University, KY, and coordinated by Joe Pawlik, with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation, Biological Oceanography Program.

With more than 180 sponge species in the database, the majority currently come from the Bahamas, but the group hopes to add additional species from around the Caribbean in the near future.  Please note that at this time, only scientific names are used.  (Source:  Netherlands Antilles Coral Reef Initiative)