[Lee Stewart]

Deep-dwelling glass sponges may look soft, squidgy and, in the case of this Euplectella species, as pretty as spun sugar. But they’re also known as ‘venus flower baskets’ because they are, to the tiny shrimp that live inside them, prisons. While the crustaceans’ offspring leave to find their own sponges, their parents eventually grow too large to escape and remain there for the rest of their lives.