Cliothosa tylostrongylata Cruz-Barraza, Carballo, Bautista-Guerrero & Nava, 2011

Pacheco, Cristian, Carballo, José Luis, Cortés, Jorge, Segovia, Johanna & Trejo, Alejandra, 2018, Excavating sponges from the Pacific of Central America, descriptions and a faunistic record, Zootaxa 4370 (5), pp. 451-491 : 471-472

Cliothosa tylostrongylata Cruz-Barraza, Carballo, Bautista-Guerrero & Nava, 2011

Material examined. ICMYL. Cty. 59. IT, ICMYL. Cty. 60. IT, ICMYL. Cty. 61. IT, ICMYL. Cty. 62. IT, ICMYL. Cty. 63. IT: Islas Taboga , Panama Bay, 1 m, 15.I.2012, coll. and det. Cristian Pacheco Solano . ICMYL. Cty. 125. FS, ICMYL. Cty. 130. FS: Bahía Culebra, 3 m, 19.XII.2012, coll. and det. Cristian Pacheco Solano. ICMARES . UES.CI.66, ICMARES.UES.CI.67, ICMARES.UES.CI.68, Playa el Faro, Los Cóbanos , El Salvador, <3 m, 24.X.2016, coll. Johanna Segovia, det. José Luis Carballo .

External morphology. Endolithic sponge in alpha morphology, with discrete papillae. Live color yellow.

Excavation. Not assessed.

Spicules. Megascleres straight, robust tylostyles, sizes variable ( Fig. 23 , 24 ). Tyles wide and sometimes slightly subterminal, shafts gradually tapering, mostly with sharp point, unless tylostyle strongly shortened and reduced to tylostyongyle. Microscleres amphiasters, either branched or reduced and conulose. With 3-4 terminal actines in branched amphiasters, or in unequal arrangement, terminally split into 2-4 strongly recurving hooks, and sometimes again branching before reaching hooks ( Fig. 23 , 24 ). Reduced amphiasters overall shorter than branching amphiasters, similar build, but actines as conical, terminally rounded spines ( Fig. 23 ). Tylostyle dimensions: 135–276 µm (x̅ =185.1, σ=39.5) x 4–12 µm (x̅ =8.4, σ=2.4). Dimensions of straight tylostrongyles: 46–230 µm (x̅ =172, σ=28.1) x 4–11 µm (x̅ =9, σ=2.0). Ramose amphiaster, length dimensions: 7–24 µm (x̅ =19.9, σ=3.0). Reduced amphiaster, length dimensions: 10–13 µm (x̅ =12, σ=1.7).

Ecology. Found in dead Pocillopora sp. between 1 and 3 m depth.

Distribution and previous records. C. tylostrongylata was described by Cruz-Barraza et al. (2011) as one of the less common clionaid species from the Mexican Pacific. Earlier reports of the same species misidentified it as the similar Cliothosa hancocki Topsent, 1905 ( Carballo et al. 2008a, 2008b), and although we cannot be sure, we assume that Scott et al. ’s (1988) account on Cl. hancocki from Costa Rica refers to the same species. Consecutive reports were again from the Mexican Pacific ( Vega 2012). In this study, the species was collected at El Salvador the first time, where it is the most abundant boring sponge ( Fig. 25 ).

Remarks. Presently six species are accepted in the genus Cliothosa ( Soest et al. 2016) , which for a long time almost exclusively relied on faunistic reports of C. hancocki (see Table 2 in Cruz-Barraza et al. 2011). Only Cliothosa aurivillii (Lindgren, 1897) was also occasionally mentioned in recent publications from the Pacific ( Calcinai et al. 2006; Schönberg & Wisshak 2012; Lim et al. 2016). Cl. aurivillii has characteristic microscleres and can easily be distinguished from Cl. hancocki , so any Cliothosa samples with proper amphiasters were traditionally identified as hancocki (see Carballo et al. 2008a, 2008b). More recently similar clionaid species are distinguished from each other, and the Mexican Cliothosa species with ramose amphiasters was described as a distinct species ( Cruz-Barraza et al. 2011).

Figures

FIGURE 23. Spicules of Cliothosa tylostrongylata from Costa Rica: A) tylostyles, B) branched amphiasters, C) nodulose amphiasters.

FIGURE 24. Spicules of Cliothosa tylostrongylatafrom El Salvador.

FIGURE 25.Distribution of Cliothosatylostrongylata in the study area.