Axinella donnani
Creators: name: Pereira, Preeti
name: Raghunathan, Chelladurai
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Porifera
Demospongiae
Halichondrida
Axinellidae
Axinella
Axinella donnani

description: Axinella donnani (Bowerbank, 1873)
(Figures 3 A–D)
Synonymy:
Isodictya donnani Bowerbank, 1873: 28, pl. VI, figs. 2–6.
Axinella donnani (Bowerbank, 1873): Dendy, 1887: 158, pl. XI, fig. 1; Dendy, 1889: 89; Thomas, 1970: 207, fig. 1, 4; Thomas, 1979: 28, pl. II, fig. 3; Thomas, 1981: 29, pl. II, fig. 15, pl. IV, fig. 33; Thomas, 1985: 289.
Material examined: 2 specimens, ZSI/ANRC–17049, February 22, 2017, Natural Bridge, Neil Island, Ritchie’s Archipelago, Coll. Seepana Rajendra; 2 specimens, ZSI/ANRC–17058, May 12, 2016, Pongibalu, South Andaman, Coll. Preeti Pereira; 2 specimens, ZSI/ANRC–17061, November 17, 2015, Hut Bay Jetty, Little Andaman, Coll. Seepana Rajendra; 1 specimen, ZSI/ANRC–17497, May 28, 2017, Trilby Island, North Andaman; Coll. Seepana Rajendra, 1 specimen, ZSI/ANRC–17504, May 29, 2017, Durgapur (site II), North Andaman, Coll. Naveen Kumar Nigam; 1 specimen, ZSI/ANRC–18068, October 25, 2017, Tree Islet North Andaman, Coll. Preeti Pereira; 1 specimen, ZSI/ANRC–19281, March 19, 2018, Bus Stop (a dive site), Neil Island, Ritchie’s Archipelago, Coll. Preeti Pereira.
Description: Massive, cup-shaped or funnel-shaped with undulating margins and thick walls, sometimes attached by a stalk to the substratum (Fig. 3A); Surface slightly hispid; colour bright orange when alive and lighter on preservation in iso-propyl alcohol (Fig. 3B); consistency compact and compressible. The sponge measured 7 cm across with a stalk length of 2 cm; ostia not visible, oscules measured 0.2 to 0.4 mm.
Skeleton: Ectosome not specialized; choanosomal skeleton made up of strong fasciculate primary fibres often branching into secondary fibres, giving it a confused appearance; spicules interspersed with clear spongin with their ends projecting beyond the ectosome, giving the sponge a lightly hispid appearance (Fig. 3C).
Spicules: Styles and oxeas (Fig. 3D).
Styles smooth, thick and slightly curved; Oxeas stout, slightly curved and sharply pointed at both ends. The spicule morphometrics varied greatly among the survey localities (Table 2).
Distribution: Axinella donnani is reported herein for the first time from the Andaman province. The type locality of this species is Sri Lanka (Bowerbank 1873) and subsequent records have been made from the Gulf of Mannar (Dendy 1889; Thomas 1970; Thomas 1985) in the West and South Indian Shelf province; Tamil Nadu, Eastern India (Dendy 1887) in the Bay of Bengal province; Tulear, Madagascar (Vacelet & Vasseur 1977), Mahe Island Seychelles (Thomas 1981), Mozambique Channel, Delagao (Thomas 1979), Western and Northern Madagascar in the Western Indian Ocean province. The distribution of this species is restricted to the Western Indo-Pacific realm. Further records of this species in India include Poshetra, Gujarat (Dendy 1916), Gulf of Kutch (Subba Rao & Sastry 2005) and Karnataka (Pattanayak & Mitra 2013).
Remarks: The specimens examined in the present study are similar to those described by Bowerbank (1873) and Thomas (1985). Widely distributed in the western Indo-Pacific, this species was commonly recorded from the shallow water sub-tidal localities of the Andaman group of Islands in depths ranging from 4– 20 m.
description: Published as part of Pereira, Preeti & Raghunathan, Chelladurai, 2020, New records of Indo-Pacific sponges from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands India, pp. 81-97 in Zootaxa 4894 (4) on page 86, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4894.1.4, http://zenodo.org/record/4315490