Podospongia

Sim-Smith, Carina & Kelly, Michelle, 2011, Two new genera in the family Podospongiidae (Demospongiae: Poecilosclerida) with eight new Western Pacific species, Zootaxa 2976, pp. 32-54 : 34

Genus Podospongia du Bocage, 1869

[ Lovenia ] du Bocage, (1868) (preoccupied).

Podospongia du Bocage, 1869: 160.

Alcyospongia de Laubenfels, 1934: 18.

Type species: Podospongia loveni (du Bocage, 1869: 160) (by monotypy).

Diagnosis. Small stipitate Podospongiidae , up to 100 mm total length, with an elliptical body elevated on a thin stem, with surface ostia and apical oscules, or differentiated aquiferous faces. Strongyloxeas and irregularly curved anisostrongyles form the primary tracts of the stem and body, and radiate with thin polytylote strongyloxeas and anisoxeas that form the finer secondary fibres and brushes in the ectosome. Microscleres are aciculospinorhabds which may have short bifurcate or long spined projections. The protospinorhabd in some species is clearly sigmoidal (emended from Kelly & Samaai 2002).

Remarks. Podospongia species have a wide distribution in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans and are found between 50 and 732 m in tropical and cold water regions. The genus is currently represented by five species that are all rare. The type species, P. loveni du Bocage 1869, was first described from Portugal and more recently from the Cantabrian Sea ( Cristobo et al. 2009). Vacelet (1969) reported a thinly-encrusting form of P. loveni , but there is some doubt as to whether this is the same species. Podospongia india (de Laubenfels 1934) is from Puerto Rico and P. natalensis ( Kirkpatrick 1903) is from the Natal coast of South Africa. Two species of Podospongia are recorded from southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean; P. similis Lévi, 1993 from New Caledonia ( Lévi 1993) and Indonesia ( Erhardt & Baensch 2000), and an undescribed Podospongia species also from Indonesia ( Colin & Arneson, 1995). The fifth species, thinly encrusting Latrunculia normani ( Stephens 1915) from the northwest Ireland, was attributed to Podospongia by Kelly & Samaai (2002) because of the similarity of the microscleres to the aciculospinorhabds of Podospongia . However, we have re-assigned P. normani to Neopodospongia normani nov. gen. because of its encrusting morphology (see below). Podospongia is hereby restricted to stipitate species. The diagnosis of Podospongia has been re-focused to highlight the stipitate morphology of the group and to more clearly define the spicule characteristics, specifically the two categories of megascleres, and the variation in the ornamentation of the microscleres.