Tsitsikamma pedunculata Samaai, Gibbons, Kelly & Davies-Coleman, 2003, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Samaai, Toufiek
name: Gibbons, Mark J.
name: Kelly, Michelle
name: Davies-Coleman, Mike
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2003
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Porifera
Demospongiae
Poecilosclerida
Latrunculiidae
Tsitsikamma
Tsitsikamma pedunculata

description: Tsitsikamma pedunculata sp. nov. (Figs. 3 G, 4F, 6B)
Holotype material. BMNH 2003.1.10.2: Thunderbolt Reef, 1 nm SSW of Cape Recifé, Algoa Bay, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, 34° 03' 14''S, 25° 41' 35''E, collected by Dr Patrick L. Colin, Coral Reef Research Foundation, 25 February 1999, 40 m (0 CDN 6451­ V).
Description. Sponge pedunculate, head 5 cm diameter, up to 8 cm high, stalk 3–4 cm long (Fig. 3 G). A 1–2 mm very tough leathery purse surrounds a much softer choanosome that pulls away from the outer case upon collection. Texture extremely resilient, leathery, compressible. Surface smooth and crowded with small, button­shaped oscules, 0.5–2 mm wide, 3 mm high and with numerous circular fungiform areolate porefields, 4–5 mm wide, 6 mm high, without membrane. Colour in life is salmon pink to pinkish brown (Fig. 3 G), between the oscules and areolate porefields the colour is dark pink. In preservative the ectosome is brown, the choanosome is dark brown. Contains biologically­active pyrroloquilonine alkaloid, discorhabdin derivatives 14­Bromodiscorhabdin C (M. Davies­Coleman, pers. comm. 2002; Antunes et al. unpublished data­b).
Spicule. Megascleres— Styles: slightly curved, thickened centrally, two sizes; 684 (591–728) x 16 m; 536 (500–555) x 11 m. Microscleres —Isochiadiscorhabd (Fig. 4F) with two whorls of cylindrical, conical tubercules, median whorl absent, the apex of each tubercular projection is acanthose: 29 (27–30) x 7 m.
Skeleton. The overall architecture consists of a thick ‘purse’ of tangential megascleres (the ectosome) surrounding a much softer choanosome containing an irregular reticulation of wispy tracts of smaller styles (Fig. 6 B). The choanosome detaches and falls away from the ectosomal purse when bought from the water. The choanosomal tracts range in width from 70–110 µm thick and form meshes that are elliptical in cross section and 500 µm wide. Microscleres are abundant throughout the choanosome and form an irregular palisade of oblique or erect microscleres, below which is a dense feltwork of tangential and paratangential styles approximately 1300 m deep.
Ecology. Rooted in sand between rocky outcrops on a reef, 38– 40 m.
Etymology. Named for the stalked bulbous morphology of this species.
Remarks. Tsitsikamma pedunculata sp. nov. is easily distinguished from the genus holotype T. favus Samaai & Kelly on external morphology and colouration (see Fig. 3 F); T. favus is semispherical and darkly pigmented like many Latrunculiidae, while T. pedunculata sp. nov. is stalked, bulbous, and pinkish­brown. The purse­like leathery ectosome is rather unusual and seems to form a single chamber as opposed to the numerous honeycomb chambers typical of the holotype (see Fig. 6 A). The microscleres of T. pedunculata sp. nov. are much smaller than those of T. favus [48 (41–60) x 9 (7.2–9.6) um in the holotype BMNH 1997.7.3.2], and the megascleres are slightly bigger and thicker in T. pedunculata [621 (537–700) x 14 m in the holotype BMNH 1997.7.3.2]. Apart from having smaller isochiadischoacanthorhabds, the microscleres of T. pedunculata sp. nov. have only two whorls of cylindrical, conical tubercules as opposed to three in the holotype (see Fig. 4E).
description: Published as part of Samaai, Toufiek, Gibbons, Mark J., Kelly, Michelle & Davies-Coleman, Mike, 2003, South African Latrunculiidae (Porifera: Demospongiae: Poecilosclerida): descriptions of new species of Latrunculia du Bocage, Strongylodesma Lévi, and Tsitsikamma Samaai & Kelly, pp. 1-26 in Zootaxa 371 on pages 19-20, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.156901