Stryphnus levis Kelly & Sim-Smith, 2012, sp. nov.

• Main Authors: Kelly, Michelle, Sim-Smith, Carina
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Porifera; Demospongiae; Astrophorida; Ancorinidae; Stryphnus; Stryphnus levis; New Zealand; North Cape; East Cape
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/6168621; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6168621

Stryphnus levis sp. nov. (Fig. 2 B, 6 E–H, 8) Material examined. Holotype ― NIWA 54501: NIWA Stn TAN0906/ 3, Whananaki, East Coast of Northland, 35.500 ° S, 174.541 ° E, 64–66 m, 4 Jul 2009. Paratypes ― NIWA 57349: NIWA Stn TAN0906/ 235, north of the Cavalli Islands, 34.876 ° S, 173.916 ° E, 114–117 m, 18 Jul 2009; NIWA 62045: NIWA Stn KAH 9615 /089, North Cape, 38.460 ° S, 173.828 ° E, 122 m, 1 Oct 1989. Other material: NIWA 75571: TAN 1108 / 250 Ranfurly Bank, northeast of East Cape, 37.319 ° S, 178.867 ° W, 110–113 m, 0 1 Jun 2011. Type locality. North Cape. Distribution. Northeast New Zealand, from North Cape to Whananaki. Description. Stout rounded conical lobes, 150 mm high x 60 mm thick, arising from a massive base, about 200 mm x 160 mm (Fig. 2 B). Ectosome is 1.5 mm thick and clearly visible in life on the cut surface, and sponge is invested with a 1.5–2 mm thick encrustation of Desmacella dendyi. Small perforations are visible through the surface encrustation housing polychaete worms and their tubes. Surface is smooth, featureless, and velvety to the touch. Texture is firm, compressible, interior tough and siliceous. Colour is bright orange in life owing to encrusting D. dendyi, colour in ethanol is beige throughout. Skeleton. Ectosome is 1250–1500 µm deep and clearly differentiated from the underlying choanosome, which is dense and heavily pigmented by comparison. The ectosome is translucent, diaphanous, and cavernous, with large aquiferous channels, and appears to be lightly permeated with fibrillar collagen, especially towards the lower boundary. Amphisanidasters form a thin dispersed crust on the outer surface of the sponge and are only very lightly scattered below this and throughout the choanosome. Large oxeas extend well beyond the surface of the sponge, sometimes grouped in untidy bundles, and are orientated paratangentially or obliquely to the surface. The oxeas hold an encrustation of D. dendyi about 125–250 µm above the surface. Dichotriaenes are rare, and scattered with no particular ...