Phaedimus
The sponge is governed by a little creature not resembling a crab, but much like a spider.Nevertheless, it is a crab, Typton spongicola. Now the sponge Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. viii. 16; Aristotle, Historia Animal. v. 16 (548 a 28 ff.); Pliny, Nat. Hist. ix. 148; Antigonus, 83; Mair on Oppian, Hal. v. 656; Thompson, Glossary, pp. 249-250. is no lifeless, insensitive, bloodless thing; though it clings to the rocks, Cf. W. Jaeger, Nemesios con Emesa, p. 116, n. 1. as many other animals do, it has a peculiar movement outward and inward which needs, as it were, admonition and supervision. In any case it is loose in texture and its pores are relaxed because of its sloth and dullness; but when anything edible enters, the guard gives the signal, and it closes up and consumes the prey. Even more, if a man approaches or touches it, informed by the scratching of the guard, it shudders, as it were, and so closes itself up by stiffening and contracting that it is not an easy, but a very difficult, matter for the hunters to undercut it.
