Latrunculia du Bocage, 1869,

Kelly, Michelle, Sim-Smith, Carina, Stone, Robert, Reiswig, Toufiek Samaai Henry & Austin, William, 2016, New taxa and arrangements within the family Latrunculiidae (Demospongiae, Poecilosclerida), Zootaxa 4121 (1), pp. 1-48: 5

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Latrunculia du Bocage, 1869


Genus Latrunculia du Bocage, 1869 

Type species. Latrunculia cratera du Bocage, 1869: 161  , by monotypy (lost).

Representative species. Latrunculia bocagei Ridley & Dendy, 1887: 238  ; Pl. XLIV, Fig. 1View FIGURE 1; Pl. XLV, Fig. 8, 8View FIGURE 8 A (after Samaai & Kelly 2002; Samaai et al. 2006).

Diagnosis. Encrusting or cushion sponges with trumpet-shaped or cylindrical oscules and convex or concave areolate pore fields, colour in life typically blackish green, khaki to olive green. Choanosomal architecture consists of megascleres arranged in an irregular broad-meshed reticulation of wispy tracts that lack spongin reinforcement. Megascleres are frequently slightly irregular and wavy anisostyles, occasionally with acanthose heads. Ectosomal skeleton composed of an oblique to tangential layer of megascleres, above which, is a palisade of anisodiscorhabd microscleres with their basal portions buried in the outer ectosome. Anisodiscorhabds typically have six substructures that may merge or fuse to varying degrees. The manubrium is the most basal part of the microsclere, above which, lies a basal whorl. The top of the microsclere consists of the apical whorl and an apex. Between the basal and apical whorls lie the median and subsidiary whorls, which are typically unequal in diameter (the median whorl is usually the larger), and located on the upper half of the spicule shaft. The morphology of the whorls is diverse: smooth or acanthose spines, often with curved rows of tiny teeth; smooth or acanthose flared leaf-like structures with denticulate margins forming a continuous, partially, or fully incised frill around the shaft, or undulating petal-like whorls with curved, occasionally incised denticulate margins (modified from Samaai et al. 2012).