Sponge Spicule Terminology

About

A list of the richly esoteric and myriad terms that have been used in the classification and study of fossil and modern sponge spicules.

The morphology of sponge spicule elements parallels that of structures in other biological systems, so it is not surprising that some of the terms listed here are also used to describe nerve cells, parts of insects, spiders and other organisms, &c.

These terms are among those proposed and used by early sponge scientists such as Sollas, Bowerbank, and de Laubenfels, later proposed terms by others, and adjectival forms used in spicule descriptions.

I was a sometime student of Prof. J. Keith Rigby Sr., a world expert on fossil sponges, a kindly man who deftly used the Socratic method in his grad student classes to urge and foster precision in the usage of paleontologic and geologic terms when speaking and writing.

He once quoted his professor at Columbia, Norman Newell, who in print said something like "calling a shovel a geotome does not make it sharper."