Morphological description (show/hide)
| Completely burrowed into soft muddy substrate, with barely even the small fistules and small apical oscules visible above the sediment, massive up to 120mm diameter, subspherical or tubulo-digitate, cavernous insubstantial construction (excavated throughout), fistules rudimentary, up to 18mm long, 12mm diameter. | | Oscules. Moderately small oscules up to 5mm d | | Colour. Yellow or yellow-brown in life (Munsell 2.5Y 8/8 - 7/10), pale brown in ethanol. | | Firm, compressible, stringy, friable, easily torn. | | Opaque, membranous, roughened, fibrous, usually with some detritus, often mud-covered in situ. | | Choanosomal skeleton. Disorganised halichondrioid reticulation of both multispicular directionless tracts and single spicules, multispicular tracts consist of spicule bundles composed mainly of larger styles, 5-20 spicules abreast, without apparent organisation but forming a vaguely halichondrioid-reticulate skeleton, single spicules scattered throughout the mesohyl in between major tracts, meshes large, oval, cavernous, up to 700ï¾µm diameter, found throughout the skeleton (not necessarily confined to the subectosomal region). Fibres absent, poorly developed collagen in choanosomal mesohyl. | | Thin, detachable, tangential layer of small styles, scattered in uni- or paucispicular directionless tracts over surface, usually associated with some granular collagen. | | Spicules. Styles in two size classes, larger choanosomal styles straight or slightly curved near pointed end, fusiform, sharply pointed with evenly rounded bases or sometimes anisotylote (length 425-(661.6)-940ï¾µm, width 8-(13.4)-20ï¾µm), smaller ectosomal styles slightly curved at centre or near basal end, fusiform, sharply pointed, with evenly rounded or slightly subtylote bases, occasionally anisotylote or centrotylote (length 130-(183.3)-275ï¾µm, width 3-(5.1)-7ï¾µm). | | nil. |
|
Reference (show/hide)
| Erpenbeck D, Hall K, Alvarez B, Büttner G, Sacher K, Schätzle S, Schuster A, Vargas S, Hooper JNA, Wörheide G (in press) The phylogeny of halichondrid demosponges: past and present re-visited with DNA-barcoding data. The phylogeny of halichondrid demosponges: past and present re-visited with DNA-barcoding data. Organisms Diversity & Evolution. |
|
