Agelas sventres Lehnert & van Soest 1996
Creators: name: Ugalde, Diana
name: Fernandez, Julio C. C.
name: Gómez, Patricia
name: Lôbo-Hajdu, Gisele
name: Simões, Nuno
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Porifera
Demospongiae
Agelasida
Agelasidae
Agelas
Agelas sventres

description: Agelas sventres Lehnert & van Soest, 1996   
Tables 6, 7; Figs. 6A–D, 16E  
 Synonymy and references: Agelas sventres Lehnert & van Soest (1996:65); Agelas sventres: Muricy et al. (2011: 40), Rützler et al. (2014: 78), Parra-Velandia et al. (2014: 334), and Pérez et al. (2017: 11); Agelas clathrodes, Agelas dispar,? Agelas dispar,? Agelas sparsus and Agelas schmidtii: see references compiled in Parra-Velandia et al. (2014: 334).   
 Type locality. Jamaica.   
 Material examined. CNPGG-2442, Cabezo reef (19.05086°, N, - 95.82388°W), 10.4 m depth, coll. Diana Ugalde, 30 August 2018.   
 Description. Massive habit to lobed (Fig. 16E); size 3.4 × 2.3 cm. Surface smooth, irregular, but pierced by oval to round apertures, with aggregated pore areas. Oscules on the top of lobes. Orange color in vivo, beige after preserved in ethanol. Consistency is highly compressible.   
 Skeleton. A reticulation of spongin fibers conforming irregularly rounded meshes up to 435 µm wide (Fig. 6A). Ascending fibers 100–150 µm thick, cored by several spicules. Interconnecting fibers uncored 30–60 µm thick. Fibers echinated by several spicules (Fig. 6B–C).   
 Spicules. Megascleres: verticillate acanthostyles (Fig. 6D), with a smooth tip, stout, slightly curved, in a large size range, 80– 135.4 (32)–200/5– 10.9 (2.9)–14 µm.   
 Distribution. Mexico (Green et al. 1986: as Agelas dispar; current records), other countries in the Caribbean Sea, Brazil (Parra-Velandia et al. 2014).   
 Remarks. Agelas sventres was reported initially in Jamaica (51.8 m depth), with an elongate habit (fingershaped), orange color, a trabeculate skeleton with ascending fibres cored by acanthostyles (i.e., verticillate acanthostyles), 75–160/7–l6 µm (Lehnert & van Soest 1996). Parra-Velandia et al. (2014) have widely studied A. sventres from different localities in the Caribbean region (Bahamas, Barbados, Curaçao, Venezuela, Jamaica, and San Andrés Island), at 5 to 35 m depth, and they have described massive-lobate specimens, which vary from an elongated ball form (finger shape) to irregular multilobate ball forms. Besides, Parra-Velandia et al. (2014) have reported orange color (externally), trabecular skeleton (reticulate), and verticillate acanthostyles: 75–286/4–13 µm. Specimens in South America have only been recorded in northeastern Brazil, in Potiguar Basin, from ca. 50 m depth, with an erect habit (columnar and irregular to digitiform shape), bright orange to reddish-orange color, and verticillate acanthostyles: 86–189 µm (Muricy et al. 2008, 2011).   
 The morphological character in our specimens matches closely with the descriptions of Lehnert & van Soest (1996) and Parra-Velandia et al. (2014), with a massive-lobate shape, orange color, reticulate skeleton with fibers cored by verticillate acanthostyles 80–200/5–14 µm. Our description fits well in the known A. sventres variability, thus confirming our identification and the species’ distribution in the region.
description: Published as part of Ugalde, Diana, Fernandez, Julio C. C., Gómez, Patricia, Lôbo-Hajdu, Gisele & Simões, Nuno, 2021, An update on the diversity of marine sponges in the southern Gulf of Mexico coral reefs, pp. 1-112 in Zootaxa 5031 (1) on pages 13-14, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5031.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/5454380