Tedania (Tedania) ignis (Duchassaing & Michelotti, 1864)

Calcinai, Barbara, Bavestrello, Giorgio, Bertolino, Marco, Pica, Daniela, Wagner, Daniel & Cerrano, Carlo, 2013, Sponges associated with octocorals in the Indo-Pacific, with the description of four new species, Zootaxa 3617 (1), pp. 1-61 : 28-30

publication ID

https://doi.org/ 10.11646/zootaxa.3617.1.1

publication LSID

lsid:zoobank.org:pub:4DCCD152-65DA-44A3-AB19-59811384E1E7

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6156083

persistent identifier

https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03B7DE6C-8A34-F86A-FF38-C04BFD6AC47A

treatment provided by

Plazi

scientific name

Tedania (Tedania) ignis (Duchassaing & Michelotti, 1864)
status

 

Tedania (Tedania) ignis (Duchassaing & Michelotti, 1864) View in CoL

( Figs. 17 View FIGURE 17 A–F; 18) ( Tab. 7 View TABLE 7 )

Examined material. Sample K5: Hawai’i, O’ahu Island, 1 m, 31 August 2003.

Description. Pulpy sponge, about 1.5 mm thick, massively encrusting a branch of Carijoa riisei , 7 cm long ( Fig. 17 View FIGURE 17 A). The anthocodiae are free from the sponge ( Fig. 17 View FIGURE 17 A). Surface macroscopically smooth, consistency soft and tough. Beige in ethanol ( Fig. 17 View FIGURE 17 A).

Skeleton. The ectosomal skeleton is not clearly observable; it is mainly composed of tylotes and onychaetes protruding from the surface and making it hispid ( Fig. 17 View FIGURE 17 B); paucispicular tracts of tylotes are tangentially disposed. The choanosome is an irregular reticulation of uni- or paucispicular tracts of styles. In general the skeleton appears isotropic.

Spicules. Styles frequently curved ( Fig. 17 View FIGURE 17 C), 245 – (254 ± 6.9) – 270 x 3.75 – (7.8 ± 2.7) – 10 μm. Tornotes with rounded and microspined points ( Fig. 17 View FIGURE 17 D), 187.5 – (199.3 ± 5.8) – 207.5 x 2.5 – (3.9 ± 0.7) – 5 μm. Onychaetes separable in two size classes with numerous intermediate forms. Onychaetes I, finely spined, with symmetrical tips ( Fig. 17 View FIGURE 17 E), 160 – (170 ± 10.6) – 180 μm; onychaetes II with clear asymmetrical tips and slightly spread long spines ( Fig. 17 View FIGURE 17 F), 40 – (49 ± 8.6) – 60 μm.

Distribution and remarks. St. Thomas, Curaçao, Bonaire, St. Martin, Puerto Rico, Florida (van Soest 1984); Antigua ( Carter 1882), Jamaica ( Hechtel 1965), Bahamas (de Laubenfels 1949; Wiedenmayer 1977), Bermuda ( Ridley & Dendy 1887 ; de Laubenfels 1950b), Gulf Coast ( Little 1963), Belize ( Burton 1954 as T. anhelans ), Panama (de Laubenfels 1936b), Hawai’i (de Laubenfels 1950a) and Palau (de Laubenfels 1954).

Van Soest, 1984 re-described the paralectotype of Thalysias ignis Duchassaing & Michelotti (1864) , and reported the presence of two size classes of onychaetes (about 50 μm and 180 μm in length); the same author also recognized, in his material from Caribbean, two distinct size classes of onychaetes, with numerous intermediate sizes. On the contrary, Hechtel (1965) and Wiedenmayer (1977) detected the presence of a single category only. Bhattacharya analysis based on onychaete lengths shows the presence of two main size classes corresponding to those of Duchassaing & Michelotti (1864) sensu Van Soest (1984: Tab. 7 View TABLE 7 and Fig. 18 View FIGURE 18 ). The most frequent class (group 1), 54.6%, comprises onychaetes between 40–60 μm ( Tab. 7 View TABLE 7 and Figs. 17 View FIGURE 17 F; 18); the second class with a wide population of spicules (group 3), 34.5%, comprises onychaetes of about 160–180 μm in length ( Tab. 7 View TABLE 7 and Figs. 17 View FIGURE 17 E; 18). An additional small group (group 2), 10.9%, with a mean of 110 μm is probably composed of growing onychaetes I ( Tab. 7 View TABLE 7 and Fig. 18 View FIGURE 18 ).

The species has been considered to be present in Hawai’i since 1950 (de Laubenfels 1950a; Kelly-Borges & Valentine 1995), having been transported there along with other sponges of the fouling community ( Bergquist 1967). Tedania ignis was also recorded in massive form in O’ahu Island (Kane’ohe Bay, in 2006) and in Pearl Harbor (in 2007) (B.C. pers. observ.).

In the absence of molecular evidence we can not exclude that T. ignis constitutes a species complex, comprising morphologically indistinct species.

TABLE 7. Tedania (Tedania) ignis (Duchassaing & Michelotti, 1864). Analysis with Bhattacharya’s method indicating the numbers of identified cohorts (groups) of onychaetes, the mean length for each cohort and the number of spicules present in each cohort. S. d. Standard deviation; S. I. Separation index; separation of the groups is generally unreliable when the S. I. value is below 2. N. a. not applicable.

Group Mean s.d. Population S.I.
1 49.47 8.610 125 n.a.
2 110 6.970 25 3.550
3 170 10.560 79 2.730

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Porifera

Class

Demospongiae

Order

Poecilosclerida

Family

Tedaniidae

Genus

Tedania

SubGenus

Tedania

GBIF Dataset (for parent article) Darwin Core Archive (for parent article) View in SIBiLS Plain XML RDF