Arctic sponges discovered feeding on fossilized remains of extinct animals

Beneath the Arctic ice, on the slopes of long-dead volcanoes near the North Pole, scientists have discovered vast gardens of sea sponges surviving in a way no one had previously documented — by consuming the fossilized remains of creatures extinct for thousands of years. Reported in Nature Communications by a team led by Antje Boetius of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, the discovery reveals an ecosystem that has, in effect, turned geological time into a food source. It is a quiet but profound reminder that life does not wait for favorable conditions — it negotiates with whate