Cliona vermifera Hancock, 1867

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 : 468-470

Cliona vermifera Hancock, 1867

Material examined. CIMAR.CU.06, CIMAR.CU.8(I), CIMAR.CU.09(I), CIMAR.CU.09(IIa) MZUCR.381: Bahía Culebra, 10m, 21.III.2011, coll. and det. Cristian Pacheco Solano . CIMAR. CU.122, CIMAR.CU.123, CIMAR.CU.200, CIMAR.CU.201: Bahía Culebra, 10 m, 28.VI.2011, coll. and det. Cristian Pacheco Solano . MZUCR. 383, MZUCR.384, CIMAR.IC.21.1, CIMAR.IC.34.1: Isla del Caño , 5 m, 12. II.2011, coll. and det. Cristian Pacheco Solano. N /A: Playa el Faro, Los Cóbanos , El Salvador , <3 m, 1-X-2016, coll. Sofía Solorzano, det. José Luis Carballo .

External morphology. Endolithic sponge in alpha morphology. Circular papillae 1 mm in diameter. Live color orange.

Excavation. Erosion multicamerate. Oval or irregular chambers with diameters of 1 to 3 mm, occasionally fused. Erosion scars 35–53 µm in diameter, very smooth, with sharp edges ( Fig. 20 ).

Spicules. Megascleres as tylostyles in two size classes, microscleres helical rods ( Fig. 21 ). Tylostyle dimensions: 100–294 µm (x̅ =195.1, σ=54.8) x 1–12 µm (x̅ =5.3, σ=3.0). Spiraster dimensions: 25–65 µm (x̅ =41.9, σ=9.8) x 1–12 (x̅ =3.9, σ=1.6) µm.

Previous records. Carballo et al. (2008a) and Vega (2012) sampled C. vermifera in the Mexican Pacific. Guzmán (1988) further reported it from Costa Rica. Our account is a new record for El Salvador.

Ecology. It was found in dead coral of genus Pocillopora and Porites , from 5 to 10 m depth. C. vermifera is the most abundant excavating sponge in the ETP and is thus of considerable importance to local bioerosion ( Carballo et al. 2008b; Vega 2012).

Distribution and previous records. The species was described by Hancock (1867) without indication of the type locality. It has since been widely reported, from the Mediterranean Sea ( Volz 1939; Bertolino et al. 2013), Eastern Atlantic Ocean ( Carballo et al. 1994), Caribbean ( Topsent 1889, Hechtel 1965; Rützler 1974; Ward & Risk 1977), Mexican Pacific ( Carter 2009; Carballo et al. 2004, 2008a; Vega 2012), the Western Pacific ( Schönberg 2001), and Indian Ocean ( Topsent 1932). Scott et al. (1988) found this species in Costa Rica, and we did additionally in El Salvador ( Fig. 22 ).

Remarks. Due to its characteristic microscleres and its two size classes of tylostyles ( Fig. 21 ), C. vermifera has always been regarded as easy to identify, and it has been reported from warm waters across the whole world (Schönberg et al. 2017). Traditionally, C. vermifera was thought to be cosmopolitan (e.g. Schönberg et al. 2006). However, due to recent discoveries of taxonomically cryptic species within the Clionaida ( Boury-Esnault et al. 1999; Xavier et al. 2010, Paula et al. 2012), such “cosmopolitan” species are now treated with more caution and are increasingly reviewed. A recent publication by León-Pech et al. (2015) showed that dispersal abilities of C. vermifera were limited in the Mexican Pacific, which suggests that this species could also be a species complex. We were unable to resolve this taxonomically and treated C. vermifera as one species.

Figures

FIGURE 20.Cliona vermifera bioerosion.A) Erosion chamber (arrow) and B) erosion scars.

FIGURE 21. Spicules of Cliona vermifera from Costa Rica: A) tylostyles, B) sinuous microstrongyles, C) both spicules types to scale, D) spicules of specimen from El Salvador (light microscope).

FIGURE22. Distribution of Cliona vermiferain the study area.