Mycale (Carmia) maunakea De Laubenfels, 1951

Van, Rob W. M., Aryasari, Ratih & De, Nicole J., 2021, Mycale species of the tropical Indo-West Pacific (Porifera, Demospongiae, Poecilosclerida), Zootaxa 4912 (1), pp. 1-212 : 83

Mycale (Carmia) maunakea De Laubenfels, 1951

Mycale maunakea De Laubenfels, 1951 a: 261 , fig. 7; Bergquist 1967: 159 (misspelled as manuakea).

Mycale cecilia sensu De Laubenfels 1950: 25 , fig. 15; Bergquist 1977: 65; Kelly et al. 2003: Appendix p. 6 (?not: Mycale cecilia De Laubenfels, 1936 b )

Summary description. Encrusting, 1 mm thick, pale pink in life, soft. Oscules about 200 µm. Ectosome contains numerous microscleres but no megascleres. Skeleton formed by spicule tracts forming columns 30–40 µm in diameter, 100–200 µm apart, that do not anastomose or branch. At the surface they make dermal tufts. Mycalostyles 160–240 x 2–6 µm, anisochelae, narrow, almost isochelae-like, in one (?) size, 13–22 µm, sigmas 37–42 µm.

Distribution. Island of Hawaii, Hilo Harbor, Coconut Island, depth 2 m.

Comment. Mycale (Carmia) cecilia sensu Carballo & Cruz-Barraza 2010 (p. 180 in part, the Hawaiian record) may be conspecific with this species, because these authors synonymized the present species with De Laubenfels’ (1936b) M. (C.) cecilia , a species from the Pacific coast of Panama. Mycale (Carmia) cecilia sensu Kelly et al. 2003 from Micronesia ( Northern Mariana Islands, Saipan), identified by Michelle Kelly, may also be referred here. Without closer comparison between the present species and the type of M. (C.) cecilia it appears prudent to keep M. (C.) maunakea and M. (C.) cecilia as separate species.