Clathrina aff. luteoculcitella Wörheide & Hooper, 1999

Clathrina aff. luteoculcitella Wörheide & Hooper, 1999 View in CoL

Figures 6a–d View FIGURE 6

? Clathrina luteoculcitella Wörheide & Hooper, 1999: 868 View in CoL , fig. 5; Klautau & Valentine, 2003: 30, fig. 23.

Clathrina luteoculcitella View in CoL ’Indonesia’; Klautau et al. 2013: 12.

Material examined. ZMA Por. 08657, Indonesia, SE Sulawesi, SW Salayar, NW coast of Pulau Guang, 6.35°S 120.45°E, depth 4–12 m GoogleMaps , SCUBA, coll. R. W.M. van Soest, Indonesian-Dutch Snellius II Expedition stat. 152 / III/ 40 , 29 September 1984 .

Description. Dense, partially digitate mass of tightly anastomosed thin tubes ( Fig. 6a View FIGURE 6 ). Water-collecting tubes are lacking. Overall size 2.5 cm long, 1 cm wide, digitations 0.5–1 cm high. Live color noted as pale yellowish, in alcohol it is beige-yellow.

Skeleton. ( Fig. 6b View FIGURE 6 ) A dense layer of small triactines, with occasional diactines, but these are invariably broken off.

Spicules. Triactines, possibly diactines.

Triactines, ( Fig. 6c View FIGURE 6 ) equiangular equiactinal, with conical actines, 67– 87.3 –98 x 6– 8.1 –10 µm; rarely one of the actines is crooked.

Diactines, ( Fig. 6d View FIGURE 6 ) not certainly proper, few are present and these consist mostly of short broken pieces, 80– 120 x 6 µm.

Ecology. Caves and overhangs in reef environment, 4–25 m.

Distribution. Indonesia, NE Australia.

Remarks. Klautau et al. (2013) listed this material as Clathrina luteoculcitella Wörheide & Hooper, 1999 on account of the tightly anastomosed mass of fine tubes in combination with the small triactines with relatively robust conical actines and a presence of diactines. The presence of diactines is a less convincing similarity with the Australian material as these were only few and mostly broken in our specimen, whereas Wörheide & Hooper pictured a specimen with lots of diactines sticking from its surface (their fig. 5B). Dr Michelle Klautau (personal communication) used the present material in her phylogenetic analysis (see Klautau et al. 2013: fig. 1) and it appeared in the same clade - but at some distance - as the Australian holotype of C. luteoculcitella . We assume here that it is close to C. luteoculcitella but possibly distinct.

We note here that the specimen is also close to the Sri Lankan Clathrina ceylonensis ( Dendy, 1905) (as Leucosolenia coriacea var. ceylonensis Dendy, 1905: 226 , pl. XIII fig. 8). This also has a cormus of tightly anastomosed tubes and triactines in exactly the same size and shape. Dendy (1905: 227) noticed diactines in some of the specimens.