Clathrina stipitata ( Dendy, 1891 ), 2015

Clathrina stipitata ( Dendy, 1891) View in CoL comb. nov.

Figures 9a–b View FIGURE 9

Leucosolenia stipitata Dendy, 1891: 51 , pl. I figs 4–6, pl. IV fig. 2, pl. IX fig. 5

Leucosolenia macleayi ; Burton, 1930: 2 (not: Ascetta macleayi Von Lendenfeld, 1885 View in CoL )

Material examined. ZMA Por. 00134, Indonesia, Sulawesi, Karkaralong Islands, anchorage off Kawio and Kamboling Islands , 4.672°N 125.4015°E, depth 23–31 m, dredged, coll. Siboga Expedition stat. 129, 22 July 1889 GoogleMaps .

Description. Stalked small sponge, dirty white in alcohol ( Fig. 9a View FIGURE 9 ). Upper part consists of a tight mass of thin tubes. Stalk approximately 6 mm long, body 8 x 6 mm. Consistency soft, easily damaged.

Skeleton. The wall of the tubes consist of several layers of triactines ( Fig. 9b View FIGURE 9 ).

Spicules. ( Fig. 9b View FIGURE 9 ) Triactines only, in two categories.

Small equiangular equiactinal triactines, actines 69– 76.5 –84 x 5– 5.9 –7 µm.

Small parasagittal triactines (arrows in Fig. 9b View FIGURE 9 ), unpaired actines 123– 135.8 –151 x 6– 6.6 –7 µm, paired actines 66– 73.8 –85 x 5– 5.4 –6 µm.

Ecology. Deeper water down to 32 m.

Distribution. Indonesia, South East Australia.

Remarks. The identification is not entirely certain as Dendy cites slightly shorter unpaired actines for the type. Clathrina macleayi ( Von Lendenfeld, 1885) has much smaller spicules and is unlikely to be conspecific. Remarkably, Burton (1963) in his list of specimens/slides in the collection of the Natural History Museum lists a slide of the Siboga collection (BMNH 1928.6.18.3) as Leucosolenia stipitata , whereas he used the name L. macleayi in the 1930 description.

Because of the stalked habitus of the present species, it would have been assigned to the genus Guancha in the Systema Porifera classification (Borojevic et al. 2002a). However, in the recent revision of Klautau et al. (2013) they demonstrated that the genus is polyphyletic and its type species falls in the same clade as Clathrina .

Genus Arthuria Klautau, Azevedo, Cóndor-Luján, Rapp, Collins & Russo, 2013

Clathrinidae with asconoid aquiferous system possessing both triactines and tetractines, the latter in low proportion (after Klautau et al. 2013).