Haliclona ( Flagellia ) anataria ( Lévi & Lévi, 1983 ), Van Soest, 2017

Haliclona ( Flagellia) anataria ( Lévi & Lévi, 1983) View in CoL subgen. et comb. nov.

Gellius anatarius Lévi & Lévi, 1983: 976 View in CoL , fig. 37.

Description (from Lévi & Lévi 1983)

Small grey specimen of 2 × 4 mm encrusting the internal valve of a bivalve mollusk. The surface and interior is clathrate, with cavities of 0.5–2 mm diameter. The skeletal architecture is reticulated and irregularly unispicular. Oxeas are 650–800 × 25–30 μm, flagellosigmas ovoid with upturned long endings and wide-angled short endings, longest axis 125–130 μm, width 70–85 μm, normal sigmas (common) 100–120 × 2–3 μm.

Distribution and ecology

New Caledonia, 22.5333° S, 166.4167° E, depth 430–500 m (Marine Ecoregion New Caledonia).

Remarks

The name anatarius (‘duck-like’, referring to the upturned long ending) is changed to anataria to match the female gender of Haliclona . Due to the large oxeas and sigmas this species can clearly be associated with the known species of Haliclona ( Flagellia) subgen. nov. The flagellosigmas are similar in shape to those of species from nearby Indonesia ( H. ( F.) indonesiae subgen. et sp. nov., H. ( F.) hamata , H. ( F.) hentscheli subgen. et nom. nov.), of the Seychelles species H. ( F.) amirantensis subgen. et sp. nov., and to a lesser extent of the Guyanan H. ( F.) hajdui subgen. et sp. nov.

Lévi (1993) provided an additional New Caledonia deep-water ( 500 m) record of material belonging to Haliclona ( Flagellia) subgen. nov. (reported as a Gellius flagellifer ), which is definitely not assignable to H. ( F.) anataria , as it has oxeas of 300–350 × 10 μm, flagellosigmas with straight long endings, 70–105 μm, and two size categories of sigmas, 25–35 and 40–55 μm. Further study is necessary to determine whether it belongs to H. ( F.) flagellifera or perhaps to one of the above described species, e.g., H. ( F.) hentscheli subgen. et nom. nov.