"Who lives at the bottom of the ocean?" the captain asks loudly. And the answer to this question is known by several generations of people around the world at once: of course, SpongeBob and his faithful friend Patrick. It turned out that this duet is quite real: recently, oceanographers have found a starfish and a sponge, very reminiscent of a couple from a popular cartoon.
The cartoon about the adventures of a yellow sponge named Bob and his faithful melancholic friend Patrick the sea star became a real hit, which was watched with interest by both adults and children. But few people know that such a duet is almost impossible to meet in nature. Usually starfish are orange or white for camouflage, but rarely pink.
However, scientists managed to find two creatures very similar to cartoon characters at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Experts from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) saw a pink starfish and a bright yellow underwater sponge lying next to the picture taken with a special apparatus and could not resist comparing.
"Usually I avoid such comparisons, but here it is impossible to resist: this is SpongeBob and Patrick!" one of the scientists tweeted.
True, he soon decided to disappoint the audience a little: in real life, the creatures were definitely not united by friendship. Starfish are predators, and deep-sea sponges are their favorite delicacy. So, most likely, Patrick's prototype got close to gullible Bob for a delicious lunch.
