A new species of the sponge Raspailia (Raspaxilla) (Porifera: Demospongiae: Axinellida: Raspailiidae) from deep seamounts of the Western Pacific

Merrick Ekins; CÉcile Debitus; Dirk Erpenbeck; John N A Hooper

doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4410.2.7

A new species of the sponge Raspailia (Raspaxilla) (Porifera: Demospongiae: Axinellida: Raspailiidae) from deep seamounts of the Western Pacific

Zootaxa. 2018 Apr 17;4410(2):379-386. doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.4410.2.7.

Authors

Merrick Ekins¹, CÉcile Debitus, Dirk Erpenbeck, John N A Hooper

Affiliation

¹ Queensland Museum, PO Box 3300, South Brisbane 4101, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, 4072 Australia. merrick.ekins@qm.qld.gov.au.

PMID: 29690149
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4410.2.7

Abstract

A new species of Raspailia (Raspaxilla) frondosa sp. nov. is described from the deep seamounts of the Norfolk and New Caledonia Ridges. The morphology of the species resembles that of a frond or a fern, and its unique highly compressed axial skeleton of interlaced spongin fibres without spicules in combination with a radial extra axial skeleton of a perpendicular palisade of spicules, differentiate it from all other species of the subgenus. This species is compared morphologically to all 18 other valid species described in Raspailia (Raspaxilla).

Keywords: Porifera, Raspailia, Raspaxilla, Aulospongus, Seamounts, Norfolk, New Caledonia, rhabdostyles.

MeSH terms

Animals
New Caledonia
Porifera*