Penares schulzei ( Dendy 1905 )

Sim-Smith, Carina & Kelly, Michelle, 2019, Review of the sponge genus Penares (Demospongiae, Tetractinellida, Astrophorina) in the New Zealand EEZ, with descriptions of new species, Zootaxa 4638 (1), pp. 1-56 : 9-11

Penares schulzei ( Dendy 1905)

( Figs 4–6 ; Table 2)

Plakinastrella schulzei, Dendy, 1905: 69.

Penares schulzei, Lévi & Lévi, 1983: 150; Fig. 28 , Pl. 12, Fig. 6 .

Penares tylotaster, Bergquist, 1961: 198.

Material examined. NIWA 75616, NIWA Stn TAN1108/253, East Cape, 37.469° S, 178.863° E, 106–117 m, 1 Jun 2011. Microscope slide from Bergquist (1961), Stn 6, Chatham Rise, 43.667° S, 179.467° E, 396 m, 24 Jan 1954. Type locality. Sri Lanka.

Distribution. Sri Lanka; New Caledonia; East Cape and Chatham Rise, New Zealand; 106–430 m ( Figure 5 ).

Description. Morphology is irregularly massive. The sponge contains a lot of foreign material and boring gas- tropods. Dimensions of the holotype are 50 mm × 30 mm × 18 mm thick. NIWA 75616 comprises three small frag- ments that are each approximately 20 mm × 20 mm × 15 mm thick. Texture is firm, slightly compressible. Surface is slightly scratchy to the touch. Oscules (<3 mm) and pores are irregularly scattered over the holotype. No oscules are visible on NIWA 75616. Colour of the holotype is purplish grey externally and yellowish internally. Colour of NIWA 75616 in ethanol is purple throughout ( Figure 4A ).

Skeleton. Cortical skeleton has a dense layer of tangential microxeas at the surface ( Figure 4B ). Choanosomal skeleton is an irregular reticulation of oxeas. Triaenes are situated with their cladome just under the crust of micro- xeas ( Figure 4C ). Oxyasters are more abundant in the deeper parts of the holotype.

Spicules ( Figure 5 ; Table 2). Megascleres —oxeas ( Figure 5A ) are relatively stout and curved to angulate; 882 (574–1171) × 26 (9–45) µm (n = 31). Dichotriaenes ( Figure 5 B–D) are very short and variable in form, they often possess a mixture of single, bifurcate and trifurcate clads; 189 (127–403) µm long (n = 26) × 590 (381–829) µm wide (n = 32). Microscleres —microxeas ( Figure 5E ) are short, curved and frequently centrotylote with sharply pointed tips; 1667 (41–477) × 9 (2–19) µm (n = 50). Oxyasters ( Figure 5F ) are small to moderately sized with numerous long slender rays that are lightly acanthose and spined towards the tips; 15 (9–29) µm in diameter (n = 420).

Remarks. The holotype of this specimen was collected in waters 182 m deep, 12 miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka ( Dendy 1905). Lévi and Lévi (1983) described three deep-water specimens from Havannah Pass, New Caledonia (425–430 m) as P. schulzei , noting that the only difference between the New Caledonian specimens and the holotype was that the New Caledonian specimens had a clear size separation between the oxeas and microxeas, whereas, the holotype had a graduation of sizes—Dendy (1905) stated that, “ Between the large and small oxea thus described we find so many intermediate in shape and size that it is impossible to distinguish them as megascleres and microscleres respectively.” We found that NIWA 75616 had a clear size separation between the oxeas and microxeas, but Bergquist’s (1961) Chatham Rise specimen had a continuous graduation between the smallest and largest oxeas.

The spicule dimensions and morphology of NIWA 75616 and Bergquist’s (1961) Chatham Rise specimen are very similar to that of the holotype of P. schulzei and of NHL DCL 2795 from New Caledonia ( Table 2). Lévi and Lévi’s (1983) illustration of the spicules is remarkably consistent with those in Figure 5 . This record extends the latitudinal range of P. schulzei further into the South Pacific. The presence of Southeast Asian species is not unprecedented in New Zealand waters (see Kelly et al. 2015), especially amongst deep-water taxa such as the Hexactinellida ( Reiswig & Kelly 2011, 2018), lithistid sponges ( Kelly 2007) and some cladorhizid sponges ( Vacelet & Kelly 2014).

Figures

FIGURE 4. Penares schulzei (Dendy 1905), NIWA 75616: A. Specimen preserved in ethanol. Note the gastropod shells in- corporated into the interior of the sponge; B. Thin section of the cortex showing the dense layer of tangential microxeas at the surface; C. Thin section of the cortex and choanosome showing the location of the triaenes underneath the crust of microxeas.

FIGURE 5. Penares schulzei (Dendy 1905), NIWA 75616: A. Oxea; B. Dichotriaene; C & D. Triaenes with varying numbers of clads; E. Microxeas; F. Oxyaster.

FIGURE 6. Distribution of P. schulzei (Dendy 1905), around New Zealand. The white outline shows New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

FIGURE 28. Penares okokewae sp. nov., holotype NIWA 101248: A. Oxea; B. Dichotriaenes; C. Microxeas; D. Microrhabds; E. Oxyasters.