A Team of researchers have discovered four new species of carnivorous sponges in the deep waters of the North Pacific Ocean.

The team found four new species of carnivorous sponges in the North Pacific Ocean, according to new study published in the current issue of ZooTaxa. The study showed that the discovery was made in ocean off the west coasts of the U.S. and Canada, where several species of "killer" sea sponges are found.

These creates appear like small shrubs or spiny noodles in the sea. Most of these sponges are filter feeders and live of tiny bacteria and single-celled organisms and injest by shifting the water around. The new species of carnivorous sponges eat dine on small crustaceans like shrimp-like amphipods and copepods.

The team from Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California explained that the new species of sponges use tiny hairs that cover their bodies to hook small animals. Once a shrimp is trapped, the sponge begins to digest it. They said that it takes a few hours for the sponges' cells to begin the process of absorbing its prey.

Lonny Lundsten, a marine biologist from Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute said, "Typical sponges must continually beat the flagella of choanocytes to create a current, which flows through their bodies.

From this current they strain single celled organisms and bacteria, which they eat. But constantly beating these flagella is not efficient, energetically, when food is largely unavailable. Rather than creating a current, carnivores act more like spiders' webs, with a matrix of tiny hooks waiting to catch any plankton that drift past them in the currents."