Spongelia dubia Hyatt, 1877

(Fig. 2A)

Spongelia dubia Hyatt, 1877: 534, pl. 17 fig. 9.

In addition to five specimens of the typical variety Spongelia dubia Hyatt, 1877, from Biscayne Bay, Florida (syntypes MCZ 141739, PORa-7260 and 7263, approximate coordinates 25.565833°N 80.216389°W) and the Bahamas (specimens listed in the online MCZ database) Hyatt described three varieties of Spongelia dubia, varieties excavata (cf. below), foraminosa (cf. below), and mollior (cf. below).

Spongelia dubia Hyatt, 1877, described as a black Dysidea -like sponge, was declared unrecognizable by De Laubenfels (1948: 146), but he suggested it could perhaps belong to the Red Sea species D. nigra Keller, 1889: 238, currently a junior synonym of Hyrtios erectus (Keller, 1889: 340) . There are no known black Dysidea species recorded from Florida or the wider Central West Atlantic region, but there is a black Hyrtios, viz. H. proteus Duchassaing & Michelotti, 1864 . However, the photo of the type specimen (Hyatt, 1877: plate 17 fig. 9, cf. Fig. 2A) is not typical for the genus Dysidea nor for the genus Hyrtios, and thus it is suspected to belong to a different, so far unrecognized, genus. For the time being it is assigned to Dysidea dubia (Hyatt, 1877) as a taxon inquirendum until it may have been classified properly.