| Demospongiae |
Astrophorida |
Geodiidae |
Geodia ?corticostylifera |
5 |
Spherical to oval sponge with an even outer surface (pierced with pores) and an upper central circular depression (sometimes rimmed) where oscules are located. Cinnamon-tan to greenish gray in color. Very hard and difficult to cut owing to its leathery cortex (the interior is softer, cream in color). Megasclere spicules are large oxea, smaller cortical styloids (styles with narrow heads) and oxeas, and orthotriaenes. Spicule preparations show very large (several mm long) broken shafts of spicules whose identity could not be defined. Microsclere spicules are round sterrasters (conforming the cortex) and acanthooxiasters. Identity is pending as previous descriptions of the species do not include spherical forms. |
Hajdu, Muricy, Custodio, Russo & Peixinho, 1992 |
cinnamon-tan,yellow,green,orange,spherical,massive,hard |
| Demospongiae |
Astrophorida |
Geodiidae |
Geodia gibberosa |
2 |
Massive, brown-black upper exposed side, with a field of oscules located in a depression; white unexposed sides with pore sieves. We have not yet found G. papyracea Hechtel, 1965 in the Bahamas, another species inhabiting mangrove stilt roots, which is crumblier. We base our identification in the presence of a small category of oxea spicules traversing abundantly the cortex of sterraster spicules (also present in Sidonops neptuni, which has a different form and habitat). Many oxeas appear flexuous in dried and mounted sections, as in G. flexisclera Pulitzer-Finali, 1986, described from the Bahamas but synonymized with G. gibberosa in the World Porifera Database (and by Cárdenas et al., 2009), but the flexion is, in our case, an artifact of section preparation. |
Lamarck, 1815 |
white,black,brown,massive,crumbly,tough |
