LEUCOSOLENIIDAE Minchin, 1900

Borojevic, Radovan, Boury-Esnault, Nicole & Vacelet, Jean, 2000, A revision of the supraspecific classification of the subclass Calcaronea (Porifera, class Calcarea), Zoosystema 22 (2), pp. 203-263 : 215-216

Family LEUCOSOLENIIDAE Minchin, 1900

TYPE GENUS. — Leucosolenia Bowerbank, 1864 by original designation.

DIAGNOSIS. — Leucosoleniida with a cormus composed of frequently branched, but rarely anastomosed, asconoid tubes, and with a continuous choanoderm that lines all the internal cavities of the sponge. There is neither a common cortex covering the cormus, nor a delimited inhalant or exhalant aquiferous system.

DESCRIPTION

The family Leucosoleniidae includes all the calcaronean homocoel sponges. In contrast to the Clathrinidae , which frequently form large massive cormi, the Leucosoleniidae are most often small and creeping tubular sponges that only rarely form cormi several centimetres large, such as Leucosolenia complicata (Montagu, 1818) or Leucosolenia eleanor Urban, 1905 .