Haliclona

Haliclona (Reniera) sp.

(Fig. 10 H)

Material. 1 specimen from station 048-1 (SMF 11818), 602.1 m, 70° 23.94' S, 8° 19.14' W, 12.01.2008.

Description. One fragmentary sponge in a relatively bad state of preservation. Sponge white in ethanol, overgrowing some bryozoan colonies, shape of the living sponge unkown, probably of massive growth. Presence of an ectosomal skeleton unknown. Spicules only strongyles of about 480 x 25 µm. Skeleton an isodictyal reticulation with edges of triangles in some rare cases forming weak, thin tracts.

Remarks. It was not possible to exactly identify this fragmentary sponge. The isodictyal skeleton and absence of microscleres are in accordance with the definition of the subgenus Haliclona (Reniera) as it is given in de Weerdt (2002). This subgenus also is reported to have occasionally strongylote spicules instead of oxeas. A bit uncommon though is the length of the strongyles in our specimen, as spicules in Haliclona are usually shorter than 250 µm (de Weerdt 2002). Still, there are some exceptions. The only representative of Haliclona (Reniera) we found that has strongyles about 470 µm is Haliclona (Reniera) phlox (de Laubenfels 1954). However, this species is very different from ours as it is thinly encrusting (de Laubenfels 1954) and occurs in the shallow western pacific. The possibility of this new sponge being a new species or a completely different genus cannot be absolutely excluded, but in consideration of the bad preservation state of the specimen, this question will not be resolved in this study.