Reniera alba var. pontica Czerniavsky, 1880

Reniera alba var. pontica Czerniavsky, 1880: 116 (no illustration).

Reniera albapontica Van Soest, 2001: 98 (listed only, erroneously assigned to Czerniavsky, making it a nomen nudum); Ereskovsky et al. 2016: table A1 (listed only); Ereskovsky et al. 2018: table 3, listed only.

Reniera alba var. pontica (Czerniavsky, 1880) is here treated as a Black Sea subspecies of Haliclona alba (Schmidt, 1862) described from the Adriatic, assuming the Black Sea has endemic forms of Mediterranean species. Still, Ereskovsky et al. (2016, 2018) list also Haliclona alba s.s. from the Black Sea, but there are no descriptions in the Ereskovsky et al. papers. Since Schmidt’s species lacks recent records or descriptions the status of the present variety is taxon inquirendum.

This is a secondary homonym of Haliclona pontica (Czerniavsky, 1880: 231 as Cacochalina digitata var. pontica). Because the combination Haliclona pontica was already used for this taxon by Ereskovsky et al. (2016: 405, table A1), Cacochalina digitata var. pontica became the senior homonym, despite Reniera alba var. pontica having page priority (cf. above). The two pontica ’s are currently considered congeneric, so the present combination needs a new subspecies name (ICZN art. 59.1), for which I propose above H. alba subsp. albapontica nom.nov., making use of an unfortunate misspelling of the original homonym in Van Soest (2001). That name is here treated as an unavailable nomen nudum, which is now made available with the present authorship and year (Ereskovsky et al. 2016: table A1 only lists the name as the earlier nomen nudum of Van Soest, 2001, and no indication is given by tese authors that it concerns a nomen novum or nova species).