Kebira Row, 1909

Van, Rob W. M. & De, Nicole J., 2018, Calcareous sponges of the Western Indian Ocean and Red Sea, Zootaxa 4426 (1), pp. 1-160 : 138

Genus Kebira Row, 1909

Remark. Up until now, the genus Kebira is monotypical and restricted to the Red Sea ( Row 1909; Burton 1952; Ilan & Vacelet 1993; Borojević et al. 2000, 2002b). The skeleton of the so far only species, K. uteoides Row, 1909 is characterized by the possession of tracts of peculiar ‘nail-shaped’ triactines, in addition to giant diactines and two forms of sagittal triactines. We also encountered specimens of this species at Jeddah in the Saudi Arabian part of the Red Sea (see below). However, sponges with the spicule complement mentioned above, including the ‘nailshaped’ triactines, are here reported from outside the Red Sea, viz. Eastern South Africa and the Seychelles. The similarity of these specimens with Red Sea Kebira uteoides is considerable, but the atrial spicules (exclusively sagittal triactines with short unpaired actine in the Red Sea Kebira ’s) include also similarly shaped sagittal tetractines with short conical apical actines. We propose to distinguish the South African tetractine-bearing specimens as a separate species of Kebira , described below. The specific status of the small tetractine-bearing specimen from the Seychelles is kept undecided because of considerable differences with the new species.