Heteromeyenia insignis WELTNER 1895
Creators: name: Tavares-Frigo, Maria da Conceição
name: Volkmer-Ribeiro, Cecília
name: Oliveira, Ana Elenice Zanini de
name: Machado, Vanessa de Souza
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2015
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Porifera
Demospongiae
Haplosclerida
Spongillidae
Heteromeyenia

description: <i>Heteromeyenia insignis</i> WELTNER (1895) (Figures 2A; 3A) <i>Heteromeyenia insignis</i> Weltner (1895, p. 142); Volkmer (1963, p. 277); Volkmer-Ribeiro <i>et al</i>. (2009, p. 100). <b>Examined material:</b> BRAZIL, Rio Grande do Sul: Santana do Livramento, EPA of Ibirapuitã, Ibirapuitã River, Passo do Cerrito, 08.VI.2012, M.C. Tavares-Frigo and M. Pairet Jr. <i>leg</i>., MCN-POR 8927; 23.XI.2012, MCN-POR 8941; Arroio Sarandizinho, 02.XII.2011, M.C. Tavares-Frigo and M. Pairet Jr. <i>leg</i>., MCN-POR 8903; 30.III.2012, MCN-POR 8911; 08. VI.2012, MCN-POR 8933. The sponge only occurred in two stations (Table 1), on clean rocky substrates or with accumulated fine sediments, in areas exposed to sunlight and with reduced water coverage. In Passo do Cerrito, St. 2, in June 2012, at the time of sampling, the surface of the river was frozen. The sponge formed seasonal crusts, gemmuliferous, shallow and delicate or with finger-like projections, light green in colour (Figure 2A). The spicule set (Figure 3A) corresponded to that shown in the re-description of this species (Volkmer, l963). <b>Remarks:</b> To date, records of <i>H. insignis</i> are circumscribed to the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Cata- rina (Weltner, 1895; De Rosa-Barbosa, 1984; Volkmer-Ribeiro <i>et al</i>., 2009), occurring in locations exposed to the sun, commonly in rivers with cold, shallow and rapid waters, flowing over basaltic bedrock of the southeastern flank, while rarely encrusting submerged vegetation, and if so, with very thin specimens. Due to their soft consistency, these sponges disintegrate during winter/torrential waters distributing their abundant gemmules downstream, where they become trapped in the rocky interstices, devel- oping again in the spring, as shown in Table 1. The species is included in the Rio Grande do Sul State’s official list of threatened fauna (Rio Grande do Sul, 2014).
description: Published as part of <i>Tavares-Frigo, Maria da Conceição, Volkmer-Ribeiro, Cecília, Oliveira, Ana Elenice Zanini de &amp; Machado, Vanessa de Souza, 2015, Freshwater sponges from the Pampa Biome, Brazil, with description of a new species of Oncosclera, pp. 110-122 in Neotropical Biology and Conservation 10 (3)</i> on page 112, DOI: 10.4013/nbc.2015.103.01, http://zenodo.org/record/2640726
description: {"references": ["WELTNER, W. 1895. Spongillidenstudien III. Katalog U. Verbreitung der bekannten Susswasserschwamme. Archiv fur Naturgeschichte, 61 (1): 114 - 144.", "VOLKMER, C. 1963. Redescription of the fresh-water sponge Heteromeyenia insignis, Weltner, 1895. Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciencias, 35 (2): 275 - 278.", "DE ROSA-BARBOSA, R. 1984. Reavaliacao da fauna espongologica continental do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil, frente a novas coletas. Iheringia, Serie Zoologia, 64: 127 - 148.", "RIO GRANDE DO SUL. 2014. Diario Oficial, Porto Alegre, 9 set."]}