You may have seen the image below, connected to a headline that has something to do wtih The Cookie Monster. Unlike me, however, you may not have thought, "Holey Faces Spongeman!"
by Mauricio Handler
This is an excellent photo by Mauricio Handler, and it certainly has been making the rounds, even showing up on the Huffington Post, with an entertaining story of how the shot came to be.
The picture jogged a memory. I had once taken a (poor) picture of a sponge, and when I was looking it over later I noticed the face of an alien. This got me wondering how many other people had captured "faces" on the surfaces of other sponges. After all, sponges are holey creatures! Their scientific name Porifera reflects the fact that they have many pores, through which water moves. The water moves into the sponge through microscopic pores and then passes out of the sponges through large holes, the largest of which are called oscula. So, this prompted me to do one of my favorite activities: Scan through pictures of sponges!
It turns out that any old sponge wtih three well placed holes (oscula) could make me see faces. So I decided to do a Google Images search for sponge faces. Not surprisingly, quite a few people have seen faces in the sponges they have come across while swimming with a camera. Here are a few thumbnails. I encourage you to follow the links to the photographers and bloggers who have posted these entertaining images.
There are more than 10,000 different kinds of sponges, coming in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Many have important ecological roles and significant economic value, and a bunch of different labs around the world are working to better understand the Porifera Tree of Life.
There is actually a word for this phenomenon: Pareidolia!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
Posted by: Allen Collins | 14 August 2014 at 03:48 PM