A sponge soaks up the water all around it.

绵动物会吸收周围的水分。

Sponges look like veins across the faces.

绵动物看起来像脸上的血管。

The study found about 50 species, including corals, sponges and seaweed, were affected along thousands of kilometers of Mediterranean coasts.

研究发现，数千公里的地中沿岸，包括珊瑚、绵动物和藻内的约50种物种受到了影响。

The lead character is an ocean animal called SpongeBob.

主角是一位名叫绵宝宝的动物。

He says animals like sponges are even more ancient, but they lack the bilateral symmetry that characterizes most animals today.

表示，绵等动物更古老，但它们缺少现今大多数动物的两侧对称特性。

He lives in a pineapple under the sea and has much to sing about.

角逐最佳乐剧奖和其11项奖项的另外一部作品是非常受欢迎的儿童电视节目《绵宝宝》。主角是一个叫做绵宝宝的动物。住下的一颗菠萝里，会唱许多歌。

Plough tracks remain etched on the seafl oor 30 years later, while populations of sponges, soft corals and sea anemones have yet to return.

30年后的今天，当初的犁形印迹仍然蚀刻床上，而绵动物、软珊瑚和葵的数量还没有恢复。

Still, I'll grant you that sponges are pretty weird as animals go – probably because they branched off very early from the rest of the animal family tree.

不过，我承认绵动物进化过程中非常奇怪——可能是因为它们很早就从动物系谱的其余部分中分离出来了。

The major groups of animals we see around us today -- from sponges to arthropods to chordates -- all showed up in this little window of time in the Cambrian.

我们今天我们周围看到的主要动物群——从绵到节肢动物再到脊索动物——都出现寒武纪的这个小时间窗口。

Coral reefs, for example, support over 4000 types of fish, along with sponges, crustaceans, and many other organisms. So, exactly when and how did the Notothenioids come to dominate the southern ocean?

例如，珊瑚礁栖息着 4000 多种鱼类，还有绵、甲壳类动物和许多其生物。那么，Notothenioids 究竟是何时以及如何开始统治南大的呢？