Acanthella Schmidt, 1862
New shallow-water sponges (Porifera) from the Galápagos Islands
Sim-Smith, Carina
Hickman, Cleveland
Kelly, Michelle
Zootaxa
2021
2021-08-02
5012
1
1
71
84K5M
Van Soest, Diaz & Pomponi, 1990
Van Soest, Diaz & Pomponi
1990
[247,851,1361,1387]
Demospongiae
Dictyonellidae
Animalia
Bubarida
33
34
Porifera
family
Genus Acanthella Schmidt, 1862
Diagnosis.Erect, bushy, ramose, lamellate or lobate habit. Surface generally coarsely conulose with protruding choanosomal spicules. Ectosome membranous, glistening in appearance, without specialised skeleton. Consistency cartilaginous-like when alive. Choanosomal skeleton with thick tracts or axes of interwoven strongyles or strongyloxeas, sometimes condensed in the axial region, dendritically branching toward the periphery and ending in conules at the surface; reduced to single spicules in some thinly branching forms. Megascleres doubly flexed and sinuously curved strongyles, sometimes strongyloxeas, always coring main spicule tracts; straight styles, oxeas or anisoxeas in any combination, echinating main tracts; microscleres absent (from Van Soest et al. 2002).