Haliclona (Gellius) cymaeformis (Esper, 1806)

Fig. 7

Diagnostic features.

The appearance is thickly encrusting to repent or arborescent (bushy). The specimen is hard and smooth on the surface, with a broad erect base with short branches. The color in life is dark greyish pink (dark purple) with desaturated dark green on the tips. After preservation, the color is pale pink to yellow. Ectosomal skeleton shows unispicular tract and covering the associated branching microalgae (Fig. 7 c). Spicules are oxeas, 109–154 (129.7) × 2.3–5.2 (3.9) µm (n = 27), and microscleres are sigmas.

Haliclona (Gellius) cymaeformis (Esper, 1806) was abundant in turbid water near Makassar City. This species is known to be associated with the rhodophyte Ceratodictyon spongiosum Zanardini, 1878 (Azzini et al. 2007). Its morphological appearance is possibly similar to those of Halichondria (Halichondria) cartilaginea (Esper, 1797) and Callyspongia (Cladochalina) samarensis (Wilson, 1925) .

Distribution and ecology.

This species has been recorded from marine karst lakes in Vietnam (Azzini et al. 2007), in shallow waters of the South China Sea (Huang et al. 2016; Lim et al. 2016), and in Taiwan (Li 2013), Andaman (Immanuel et al. 2015), India (George et al. 2020), across the Indonesian Archipelago (de Voogd and Cleary 2008), and north-west Australia (Fromont and Sampey 2014). Our samples were collected from a reef flat north-west of Samalona Island, overgrowing corals ( Seriatopora sp. and Acropora sp.), also from Kayangan Island and Gusung Tallang; turbid reef environment.