Stylocordyla borealis var. irregularis 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; Stylocordylidae; Stylocordyla; Stylocordyla borealis; Stylocordyla borealis var. irregularis hentschel; 1914; Antarc*; Antarctic; East Greenland; Greenland; North Atlantic; Jackson Island
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10568130; http://treatment.plazi.org/id/BF4E397FFFB331079786FC71B9CF0299

Stylocordyla borealis var. irregularis Hentschel, 1914 (Fig. 9E) Stylocordyla borealis var. irregularis Hentschel, 1914: 55, pl. IV fig. 2. The variety was described by Hentschel from Gauss Station, 66.0358°S 89.6333°E, depth 385 m (holotype ZMB 4840). It has the shape and skeletal structure of the North Atlantic species Stylocordyla borealis (Loven, 1868 as Hyalonema ) (for locality and type data cf. above S. borealis var. acuata ), but the ectosomal palisade consists of three types of spicules, microxeas, microstyles and curved microstrongyles. It appears only a minor difference, which remains to be further confirmed as more than spicular variation. For the time being I propose to recognize the variety as an Antarctic subspecies of the predominantly Arctic-boreal S. borealis , to be named Stylocordyla borealis subsp. irregularis Hentschel, 1914, and the Arctic-boreal subspecies to be named S. borealis subsp. borealis (Loven, 1868) (with junior synonym S. borealis subsp. typica Burton, 1934c, a.o. from Jackson Island, East Greenland, 73.9°N 20°W). Bergquist’s (1972: 130) record of S. borealis likely belongs to the present subspecies. 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 page 85, DOI:10.11646/zootaxa.5398.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/10494167