Hymeniacidon kerguelensis var. capensis Hentschel 1914

• Main Author: Van Soest, Rob W. M.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2024
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Porifera; Demospongiae; Suberitida; Halichondriidae; Hymeniacidon; Hymeniacidon kerguelensis; Hymeniacidon kerguelensis var. capensis hentschel; 1914; Kerguelen Islands
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10568106; http://treatment.plazi.org/id/BF4E397FFFB731029786F938BC1D0512

Hymeniacidon kerguelensis var. capensis Hentschel, 1914 (Fig. 8N) Hymeniacidon kerguelensis var. capensis Hentschel, 1914: 124, pl. VIII fig. 8. The variety was described by Hentschel from Simon’s Bay, Cape Town, approximate coordinates 34.1833°S 18.433°E, depth not given (syntype ZMB 4801). It is distinguished from the typical variety, also described by Hentschel (1914: 123, pl. VIII fig. 7, from shallow water in the Observatory Bay, Kerguelen Islands, approximate coordinates 49.4167°S 69.9°E, holotype ZMB 4800), by being thinner (2 mm vs 25 mm) and having indistinct skeletal tracts whereas the typical variety has these more clearly developed and consolidated by some spongin. Other characters, in particular the spicules, are similar in both. Hymeniacidon Bowerbank, 1866 species generally do not appear to have highly differentiated morphological characters, so these small differences of the two varieties in combination with 4500 km distance between Kerguelen and Cape Town may indicate they could be genetically distinct.Accordingly, I propose to distinguish them as subspecies, H. k. subsp. kerguelensis and H. k. subsp. capensis , both authored by Hentschel 1914. Other Hymeniacidon records from South Africa are H. perlevis (Montagu, 1814) (also as H. caruncula Bowerbank, 1866), reported by Stephens (1915a), Samaai & Gibbons (2005) and Samaai et al. (2022), H. stylifera (Stephens, 1915a) (as Leucophloeus ), and H. littoralis Samaai & Gibbons, 2005 all have longer and thicker styles and surface papillae. Published as part of Van Soest, Rob W. M., 2024, Correcting sponge names: nomenclatural update of lower taxa level Porifera, pp. 1-122 in Zootaxa 5398 (1) on pages 81-82, DOI:10.11646/zootaxa.5398.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/10494167