This map provides a quick look at the UK distribution of 7 of the most common and charismatic rockpool sponge species. The species chosen are below and will correspond to our species highlight blogs. You can toggle them on and off using the checkboxes on the right.

All photos are clickable to view photo ownership.

Check below the table for more information on our data sources

Photo Common Name Latin Name
crumb-of-bread sponge Hymeniacidon perlevis
Bread-crumb Sponge Halichondria panicea
Sulphur Boring Sponge Cliona celata
Small Calcareous Cup Sycon ciliatum
purse sponge Grantia compressa
Elephant’s Hide Sponge Pachymatisma johnstonia
NA Terpios gelatinosus

This is their geographic spread across the UK using all verified observations from the NBN (National Biodiversity Network) for each species.

Toggle specific species on and off using check boxes.

Why NBN and iNaturalist data for the sponges? iNaturalist has a lot fewer sponge observations and species recorded than the NBN in the UK currently. This is because iNaturalist is a considerably newer recording format than the NBN, and as it is verified by members of the public to reach ‘research level’. Sponges can be hard to identify to species level and are not always the biggest focus of casual rockpooling.

NBN data is often gained from more rigid surveys done by organisations like the Wildlife Trust, and these often lend themselves better to recording the often overlooked species like sponges. Additionally, the NBN has a team of experts available to help verify species, which can be very helpful for tricky species like sponges! This means more of their sponge observations have been verified to a species level to make this table.

This does however lead to a lag in records sometimes, so we’ve pulled out any species level iNaturalist observations that haven’t made it to the NBN yet to include on the table as well.