Leucilla antillana Cóndor-Luján, Louzada, Hajdu & Klautau, 2018, SP. NOV.
Creators: name: Cóndor-Luján, Báslavi
name: Louzada, Taynara
name: Hajdu, Eduardo
name: Klautau, Michelle
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2018
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Porifera
Calcarea
Leucosolenida
Amphoriscidae
Leucilla
Leucilla antillana

description: LEUCILLA ANTILLANA SP. NOV.
(FIGS 13, 14; TABLE 11)
Etymology: From its presence in Curaçao, which is an island of the Leeward Antilles.
Type locality: Water Factory, Willemstadt, Curaçao.
Material examined: Holotype. UFRJPOR 6768, Water Factory, Willemstadt, Curaçao (12°06′30.88″N, 68°57′13.53″W), 9.9 m depth, coll. B. Cóndor-Luján, 23 August 2011.
Diagnosis: Leucilla with a skeleton composed of cortical tetractines, subatrial triactines and atrial tetractines, and leuconoid aquiferous system.
Colour: White to light blue in life (Fig. 13A) and white in ethanol (Fig. 13B).
Morphology and anatomy: This species has an irregular tubular shape being wider at the base (Fig. 13A). It measures 1.0 × 0.8 × 0.2 cm. The surface is slightly hispid due to some protruding spicules. The osculum is apical and has a delicate crown of trichoxeas (arrow in Fig. 13B). The aquiferous system is leuconoid with subspherical to elongated choanocyte chambers ranging from 97.2 to 162.0 µm of diameter.
Skeleton: The skeleton is characteristic of the genus (Fig. 13C). The cortical skeleton is exclusively formed by tetractines (Fig. 13D) with the basal actines tangentially positioned on the surface. The choanosomal skeleton is inarticulated, composed of the apical actine of the cortical tetractines (Fig. 13E, arrow), which occasionally crosses the atrial skeleton, and of the unpaired actine of the subatrial triactines (Fig. 13F, white arrow). The subatrial triactines do not form a continuous layer, instead, they are irregularly scattered in this region. The atrial skeleton is composed of tetractines with the apical actine projected into the atrium (Fig. 13F, black arrow).
Spicules: Cortical tetractines. Sagittal. Actines are conical with sharp tips. The paired actines are frequently curved. The apical actine is straight and it is the longest actine (Fig. 14A). Some undulated apical actines were also observed. Size: 350.0–485.0/35.0–60.0 µm (paired actine), 75.0–200.0/35.0–60.0 µm (unpaired actine) and 285.0–550.0/35.0–55.0 µm (apical actine). Subatrial triactines. Sagittal. Actines are conical with sharp tips. The paired actines are straight and smaller than the unpaired one (Fig. 14B, C). Some slightly curved paired actines were also observed. Highly variable size: 175.0–460.0/15.0–60.0 µm (paired actine) and 225.0–490.0/15.0–55.0 µm (unpaired actine). Atrial tetractines. Sagittal. Actines are conical with very sharp tips. The unpaired actine is slightly longer than the paired ones (Fig. 14D). The apical actine is the thinnest and shortest actine. Size: 120.0–270.0/10.0– 12.5 µm (paired actine), 185.0–355.0/10.0–12.5 µm (unpaired actine) and 15.0–50.0/5.0–10.0 µm (apical actine).
Ecology: This species was found underneath coral boulders at 9.9 m depth. No organisms were found associated with this species.
Molecular analysis: We provide the first C-LSU sequence of a Leucilla species, L. antillana sp. nov. In both phylogenetic reconstructions (ML and BI), Leucilla was not recovered as a monophyletic genus as the two Leucilla species used in this study, L. antillana sp. nov. and L. micropilosa sp. nov. (see below), appeared in different clades (Fig. 15).
Geographical distribution: Southern Caribbean (provisionally endemic to Curaçao, present study).
Taxonomic remarks: The species that most resemble L. antillana sp. nov. are L. amphora (type locality: Puerto Rico or Barbados, Haeckel did not specify this), L. capsula Haeckel, 1872 (type locality: Agulhas Bank, South Africa), L. uter Poléjaeff, 1883 (type locality: Bermudas or Philippines, Poléjaeff did not specify this) and L. sacculata Carter, 1890 (type locality: Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, Brazil).
Leucilla antillana sp. nov. can be easily differentiated from L. amphora and L. capsula because the skeleton of the two latter species (L. amphora and L. capsula) is exclusively composed of tetractines (as described and illustrated by Haeckel, 1872), whereas the new species has subatrial triactines.
Different to L. sacculata and L. uter, the skeletons of which comprise cortical microdiactines and subatrial tetractines (these latter can be found scattered in the choanosome of those species), L. antillana sp. nov. does not have any microdiactines nor subatrial tetractines in its skeleton. Considering the spicule dimensions of the other spicule categories of L. sacculata and L. uter provided in their original descriptions, the size ranges do not match the new species. Leucilla antillana sp. nov. has thinner spicules (15.0–60.0 µm) compared to L. sacculata (84.7 µm). The apical actine of the cortical tetractines of L. uter is almost twice as long (400.0–1200.0 µm) as that of L. antillana sp. nov. (285.0–550.0 µm) and the atrial tetractines are thicker (20.0 µm vs. 10.0–12.5 µm).
Leucilla antillana sp. nov. is the second species of the genus Leucilla recorded from Curaçao. Leucilla amphora was also reported from that island by Arndt (1927). That author mentioned that Breitfuss was responsible for the identification and did not give a description of the samples. Therefore, as we did not analyse those specimens, we can neither confirm nor invalidate that record.
description: Published as part of Cóndor-Luján, Báslavi, Louzada, Taynara, Hajdu, Eduardo & Klautau, Michelle, 2018, Morphological and molecular taxonomy of calcareous sponges (Porifera: Calcarea) from Curaçao, Caribbean Sea, pp. 459-525 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 183 (3) on pages 486-488, DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlx082, http://zenodo.org/record/14813623