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Xestospongia deweerdtae “free living”
Species: Xestospongia deweerdtae “free living” | View Image Details |
Location: Plana Cays, Bahamas | Photographer: Sven Zea |
Notes: Pinkish to orange thick encrustations with volcano-shaped oscules. Consistency firmy compressible, crumbly. Spicules are perfect strongyles 325-400 x 10-20 µm arranged in the ectosome as a tangential unispicular reticulation, and in the choanosome as multispicular reticulation. We are nicknaming this species here as “free living” to contrast it with a form which lives associated to species of the genus Plakortis (in particular, the specimens from the Bahamas live over Plakortis deweerdtaephila, also pictured here; see comments there), which were studied by Vicente et al. (2014; 2016).
Author Reference: Lehnert & van Soest, 1999
Link: World Porifera Database