gray
green
cream
tube
tough
Bahamas
Hyrtios sp.-"gray amphora"
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Species: Hyrtios sp.-"gray amphora" View Image Details Location: Bahamas, Northern Exuma Cays Photographer: Sven Zea -
Species: Hyrtios sp.-"gray amphora" View Image Details Location: Bahamas, Northern Exuma Cays Photographer: Sven Zea -
Species: Hyrtios sp.-"gray amphora" View Image Details Location: Bahamas, Northern Exuma Cays Photographer: Sven Zea -
Species: Hyrtios sp.-"gray amphora" View Image Details Location: Bahamas, Northern Exuma Cays Photographer: Sven Zea
Notes: Gray, amphora-like sponges arising from cave ledges and bending towards the outside. Oscular rim narrow, smooth; surface often fouled, with a low-profile honeycomb pattern. Consistency compressible, but not too elastic, somewhat difficult to tear. Skeleton of ascending and interconnecting spongin fibers filled with sand grains and foreign material; surface with a network of sand grains, leaving only pore spaces. Should be compared to Hyrtios tubulatus Lehnert & van Soest, 1998, for which there only exists dry material. It could also be a growth form (cave?) of Hyrtios cavernosus sensu Wiedenmayer, 1977 (also pictured in this guide), as it shares with it the gray color and the skeletal architecture. There are small-juvenile? stages similar to this one in Ircinia strobilina (Lamarck, 1816) (see photos therein).