Strongylodesma australiense Kelly &amp; Goudie 2020, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Kelly, Michelle
name: Goudie, Lisa
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Porifera
Demospongiae
Poecilosclerida
Latrunculiidae
Strongylodesma
Strongylodesma australiense

description: <i>Strongylodesma australiense</i> sp. nov. (Fig. 1, Table 1) urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: 57C54719-52A3-454E-9C51-302E6503416E <b>Material examined.</b> Holotype NMVF246384, Wasp Island, New South Wales, Australia, 35.668° S, 150.308° E, 15–20 m, coll. Rob Capon, SCUBA, July 1994. <b>Type location &amp; distribution.</b> Wasp Island, New South Wales, Australia, 15–20 m. <b>Description.</b> Holotype irregularly hemispherical in life with a single, flush, oscule visible, and a low mounded surface that suggests the porefields in life: 5.5 cm long, 4 cm wide, 2.5 cm thick. Texture firm, compressible. Colour in life, dark reddish brown, purple brown in preservative (Fig. 1A, B). <b>Skeleton.</b> Ectosomal skeleton a mass of strongyles orientated paratangentially, 220–300 µm deep, with a thin, clear, collagenous region below (Fig. 1M). The choanosome contains massive primary tracts, 120–400 µm diameter (Fig. 1N), between which lie interstitial strongyles in loose groups (Fig. 1M). <b>Spicules.</b> Megascleres (Fig. 1 C–L; Table 1) are strongyles, larger spicules slightly sinuously curved, slightly thinner at one end (Fig. 1 C–E), smaller spicules sharply bent proximally (Fig. 1F, G), with faint tylote (Fig. 1C, E, J), centrotylote (Fig. 1L), and ‘shepherd’s crook’ (Fig. 1H, I) modifications: 398 (230–539) µm long, 8 (5–12) µm wide, n = 30. <b>Substrate, depth range and ecology.</b> Attached to a silted rocky reef, 15– 20 m. <b>Etymology.</b> Named for the first record of the genus in the Australian region. <b>Remarks.</b> As for all <i>Strongylodesma</i> species, <i>S. australiense</i> <b>sp. nov.</b> possesses strongyles with ‘shepherd’s crook’ modifications, a diagnostic character for the genus. These modifications also occur in species of <i>Batzella</i> Topsent (Poecilosclerida, Chondropsidae Carter), which have strongyles of a similar length to those of <i>Strongylodesma</i> species, but in the former, there is no special ectosome and the choanosomal skeleton is plumose. Moreover, the discovery of the pyrroloquinoline alkaloid Damirone A (compound 15 in Antunes <i>et al</i>. 2005), in the holotype of <i>S. australiense</i> <b>sp. nov.</b> (R. Capon, pers. comm.), strongly supports assignment of <i>S. australiense</i> <b>sp. nov.</b> to <i>Strongylodesma</i>, rather than to <i>Batzella</i>. Megasclere dimensions, ectosome thickness and choanosome structure are the primary differentiating characters for <i>Strongylodesma</i> species. The South African species <i>S. aliwaliensis</i> is closest to <i>S. australiense</i> <b>sp. nov.</b> in possessing the longest strongyles in the genus (<i>S. aliwaliensis</i> up to 590 µm long; <i>S. australiense</i> <b>sp. nov.</b> up to 539 µm long; Table 1) but those of <i>S. aliwaliensis</i> are much longer overall (<i>S. aliwaliensis</i> mean length 428 µm: <i>S. australiense</i> <b>sp. nov.</b> mean length 398 µm). Both species possess large internal tracts that are about the same thickness, but those of <i>S. aliwaliensis</i> are thicker (<i>S. aliwaliensis</i> up to 490 µm; <i>S. australiense</i> <b>sp. nov.</b> up to 400 µm thick) and form a notable, convoluted, honey-comb structure visible to the unaided eye (Samaai <i>et al</i>. 2004). <i>Strongylodesma tongaensis</i> also has massive internal tracts but much smaller strongyles (mean length 295 µm, maximum length 330 µm); all other species have much smaller spicules (see Table 1), thin ectosomes and insubstantial choanosomal tracts by comparison. Note that citing an accessioned paratype (BMNH 2003.4.10.1) for <i>S. tongaensis</i> in Samaai <i>et al</i>. (2009) from Palau, was a mistake; we can confirm here that the distribution of this species is restricted to the Kingdom of Tonga. The discovery of <i>Strongylodesma australiense</i> <b>sp. nov.</b> is significant as it is the first record of the genus in the Southwest Pacific, bridging the disparate primary locations in which the genus is recorded: the Tropical Western and South Atlantic Ocean, and the Western Pacific Ocean.
description: Published as part of <i>Kelly, Michelle &amp; Goudie, Lisa, 2020, Bridging the gap: first record of sponge genus Strongylodesma in Australian waters, pp. 397-400 in Zootaxa 4808 (2)</i> on pages 397-399, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4808.2.13, http://zenodo.org/record/3933464
description: {"references": ["Antunes, E. M., Copp, B. R., Davies-Coleman, M., Samaai, T. (2005) Pyrroloiminoquinone and related metabolites from marine sponges. Natural Products Report, 22, 62 - 72. https: // doi. org / 10.1039 / b 407299 p", "Samaai, T., Keyzers, R., Davies-Coleman, M. (2004) A new species of Strongylodesma Levi, 1969 (Porifera; Demospongiae; Poecilosclerida; Latrunculiidae) from Aliwal Shoal on the east coast of South Africa. Zootaxa, 584 (1), 1 - 11. https: // doi. org / 10.11646 / zootaxa. 584.1.1", "Samaai, T., Gibbons, M. J., Kelly, M. (2009) A revision of the genus Strongylodesma Levi (Porifera: Demospongiae: Latrunculiidae) with descriptions of four new species. Journal of the Marine Biological Association, 89 (8), 1689 - 1702. https: // doi. org / 10.1017 / S 0025315409000101", "Samaai, T., Gibbons, M. J., Kelly, M. &amp; Davies-Coleman, M. (2003) South African Latrunculiidae (Porifera: Demospongiae: Poecilosclerida): descriptions of new species of Latrunculia du Bocage, Strongylodesma Levi, and Tsitsikamma Samaai &amp; Kelly. Zootaxa, 371 (1), 1 - 26. https: // doi. org / 10.11646 / zootaxa. 371.1.1", "Levi, C. (1969) Spongiaires du Vema Seamount (Atlantique Sud). Bulletin du Museum national d'Histoire naturelle, 41 (4), 952 - 973. [https: // biodiversitylibrary. org / page / 55599924]"]}