Chalinissa elongata var. tenuispicula Thum, 1903

(Fig. 3F)

Chalinissa elongata var. tenuispicula Thum, 1903: 13, figs. 8–9.

Axinella elongata var. tenuispicula; Willenz 1994: 7.

Although Chalinissa Von Lendenfeld, 1887 is a junior synonym of Axinella Schmidt, 1862, because Burton (1927: 502) assigned the first species of Chalinissa mentioned by Von Lendenfeld, Isodictya dissimilis Bowerbank, 1866 (= Axinella dissimilis), as type species, the species C. elongata Von Lendenfeld (1887: 774) was reassigned by Burton as a junior synonym of Chalinissa communis Von Lendenfeld (1887: 772), which in turn was assigned to the synonymy of Callyspongia serpentina (Lamarck, 1814) by Hooper & Wiedenmayer (1994: 102). Thum’s var. tenuispiculata (dried holotype RBINS POR. 020) is incompletely described and no locality is mentioned, but it is possibly from Australian waters, because this author persistently cited species names from Von Lendenfeld’s ‘Chalineen des Australischen Gebietes’. The variety is stated to be similar to C. elongata but possessed smaller spicules, hence the name. Oxea length of the typical variety of Von Lendenfeld was given as 83 x 5 µm, that of Thum’s variety was not given but from his Fig. 9 I deduced they were 50–70 x 2–3 µm, a difference that hardly merits distinction. I propose to merge Thum’s variety with the typical variety and assign both to the synonymy of Callyspongia (Callyspongia) serpentina (Lamark, 1814) .