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).