Sometimes, life really mimics art. And, as we all know, who lives in a pineapple under the sea? It’s actually SpongeBob SquarePants, and the spit-printed pictures of her and Patrick Starr have cooled down in real life. In a hilarious picture posted by marine biologist and electronics researcher Christopher Ma, he showed a sea sponge and sat next to each other during a deep-sea expedition around the starfish Retriever boundary.
According to Ma, the pair was found 1,885 meters (6,184 feet) below sea level and was actually scientifically named Hertwigia (bright yellow sponge) and Chondraster (starfish). The Retriever Seamount is located in a collection of extinct volcanoes known as the New England Seamount. Found on the Massachusetts coast and extending up to 683 miles (1,100 kilometers), the beaches form a rich biota of marine life rising far above the seafloor.
They have been extensively mapped – using a modified Navy ship NOAAS Oceans Explorer used for sea exploration. The Retriever Border is now a national monument and could be the perfect place for a prosperous village of talking sponges and diving suit-clad squirrels.
Many of us are familiar with the iconic animated series SpongeBob SquarePants, where the main protagonist, a yellow sea sponge named SpongeBob, and his best friend Patrick Starr, a pink starfish who lived under a rock, traveled on new adventures every day, Bikini bottom world. Now, marine biologists think the real SpongeBob Squarepants and Patrick Starr are hanging together in real life.
About 200 miles east of New York City, two friends were spotted near the Retriever border. “I usually avoid these references … but wow, Real life SpongeBob and Patrick,” said Christopher Mah, a marine biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
A long-range vehicle (ROV) launched from NOAA’s Okeanos Explorer ship has targeted marine animals. Maher later mentioned in a tweet that the sea creatures were Hertwigia (sponges) and condensers (starfish). “I thought it would be fun to compare, which were actually a kind of comparison with the iconic image/color of the cartoon character,” Mah told Insider.
