A “real-life” Spongebob Squarepants and Patrick Star (of animated TV series fame) swept the internet in early July 2021 when deep-sea researchers captured a photo of a yellow-hued deep-sea sponge and coral-colored starfish located next to each other.
The photograph was captured during an exploratory dive conducted by the NOAA research vessel, Okeanos Explorer, on July 27, 2021. It went viral after a screengrab of the livestreamed dive was shared on Twitter by Christopher Mah, a marine biologist and invertebrate zoologist whose Twitter account focuses on all things deep-sea.
Mah, who is also associated with the National Museum of Natural History and NOAA, identified the sponge as a Hertwigi and the starfish as a Chondraster. But some social media users preferred to stick with the Nickelodeon narrative...
Ok_Care_4531 on June 2nd, 2025 at 20:15 UTC »
SpongeBob live action
gregimusprime77 on June 2nd, 2025 at 20:21 UTC »
Wanda and Cosmo think they're slick. I see right through their disguise!
Spartan2470 on June 2nd, 2025 at 20:40 UTC »
This is a frame from this video.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/real-life-spongebob-and-patrick/