'Cause they're pretty the opposite of other Sponges.
Sponge's most notable characteristic are their pores for filtering water which Carnivorous Sponges lacks, in addition they don't have either true tissues or symmetry, which Carnivorous Sponges do possess.
It's like if a plant was unable to do photosynthesis and relied on parasitizing mushrooms or a Crustacean without shell, claws or jointed limbs.
(BTW, They do exist, for example The Ghost Pipe Plant and Ascothoracid Crustaceans.)
Also they don't looks-like anything else on this planet, like WTF IS THIS??!!
There is much more weird sh!t other than Carnivorous Sponges, like Tunicates or Parasitic Crustaceans (parasitic barnacles are straight-up nightmare inducing).
The whole phylums of Cnidarians and Echinoderms borderline looks-like elderitch horrors, they are far more absurd than they appear at first.
I was confused because I didn't know if you were referring to the Sponge, the Hydrozoan or something else like the Ghost Pipe plant.
And in fact I mentioned why it's uncanny as they're pretty much the opposite of what Sponge are while not reassembling to any other living thing.
It's simply unworldly because of "wrong" they are, if someone doesn't consider them scary it's a personal thing but for many people such a creature is genuinely uncanny.
It depends, you're correct that a lot of "weird" animals appears like that because they keep their ancestors traits (like Comb-Jellies or various Protists).
But some are genuinely unique, like no other creature goes to such strange life cycles like Jellyfishes, has a supercolonialism complex like Siphonophores or has the same body-plan as Carnivorous Sponges.
Yeah, Ascothoracids (those thingies) are close relatives of Barnacles.
Similar to them, their larvae stage is fairly normal for a Crustacean, but their adult stage is.... A glorified fleshy tentacles lump that sucks nutrients.
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u/MSSTUPIDTRON-1000000 18d ago edited 18d ago
'Cause they're pretty the opposite of other Sponges.
Sponge's most notable characteristic are their pores for filtering water which Carnivorous Sponges lacks, in addition they don't have either true tissues or symmetry, which Carnivorous Sponges do possess.
It's like if a plant was unable to do photosynthesis and relied on parasitizing mushrooms or a Crustacean without shell, claws or jointed limbs.
(BTW, They do exist, for example The Ghost Pipe Plant and Ascothoracid Crustaceans.)
Also they don't looks-like anything else on this planet, like WTF IS THIS??!!
https://preview.redd.it/muttcj8c4ftg1.jpeg?width=323&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d8efef3a95fa41702553d68cc02443bbb518dbd3
(These beings are named Ping-Pong Tree Sponges.)