Description

Description The specimen is a digitiform projection, 16 cm long and 1 cm in diameter (Fig. 21 A), covered by shallow irregular depressions. It possesses many small oscula (0.1 cm across) restricted to the sides of the sponge. The diameter of the projections is mostly regular, with the exception of a constriction in the upper portion that reduces the sponge diameter to 0.5 cm. Fibers are observed projecting themselves perpendicularly from the surface of the sponge. The colour is beige with purple spots in vivo, turning completely purple when preserved in ethanol. Consistency very hard, incompressible. Skeleton: Choanosome with an orthogonal reticulation of spongin fibers, resulting in small meshes (average 550 Μm) in which the fibers are organized perpendicularly to each other (Fig. 21 B). The fibers possess a laminated bark with reddish colour and thickness of 100 – 307 Μm (average 184 Μm) and fine black or reddish pith, with thickness between 10 and 40 Μm (average 22 Μm; Fig. 21 C). Bathymetry: The only specimen was dredged at 40 m depth.

Common Names

Taxonomic Hierarchy

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Porifera

Class: Demospongiae

Order: Verongiida

Family: Aplysinidae

Genus: Aplysina

Species: Aplysina orthoreticulata Pinheiro, Hajdu & Custódio, 2007